Australia Demands Apology From China After Fake Image of Soldier Posted On Social Media (theglobeandmail.com) 145
hackingbear writes: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an apology after a senior Chinese official posted a "fake image" of an Australian soldier holding a knife with blood on it to the throat of an Afghan child, calling it "truly repugnant" and demanding it be taken down. The Australian government has asked Twitter to remove the image, posted on Monday by China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on his official Twitter account, Morrison said. "It is utterly outrageous and cannot be justified on any basis," Morrison said. "The Chinese government should be utterly ashamed of this post. It diminishes them in the world's eyes."
The image is actually an art work, originally posted on Weibo by online artist Wuhe Qilin, based on the recently uncovered war crimes committed by Australian special forces in the Afghan War. On Friday, Australia has told 13 special forces soldiers they face dismissal in relation to an independent report on alleged unlawful killings in Afghanistan, the head of the country's army said on Friday. "It is the Australian government who should feel ashamed for their soldiers killing innocent Afghan civilians," said Hua Chunying, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, when asked about Morrison's comments. Wuhe Qilin praised Zhao's re-posting [translation: "Deputy Zhao's strong. Go for it!"] of his work.
The image is actually an art work, originally posted on Weibo by online artist Wuhe Qilin, based on the recently uncovered war crimes committed by Australian special forces in the Afghan War. On Friday, Australia has told 13 special forces soldiers they face dismissal in relation to an independent report on alleged unlawful killings in Afghanistan, the head of the country's army said on Friday. "It is the Australian government who should feel ashamed for their soldiers killing innocent Afghan civilians," said Hua Chunying, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, when asked about Morrison's comments. Wuhe Qilin praised Zhao's re-posting [translation: "Deputy Zhao's strong. Go for it!"] of his work.
Dictators apologize? (Score:5, Funny)
...Good luck with that. At best you'll get the non-committing "we are sorry for the occurrence of a misunderstanding".
Re:Dictators apologize? (Score:5, Funny)
We need a spoof of that art, with Winnie butchering a few Uyghur kids.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
https://pasteboard.co/JCPDO6N.... [pasteboard.co]
Re:Dictators apologize? (Score:4, Funny)
The resemblance between Winnie and Xi is uncanny.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs... [bbc.com]
Re: (Score:3)
They aren't expecting an apology. This is little more than grandstanding which has been the political norm for Australia / China relations for the best part of 30 years. The USA may have had it's Cold War, but that is nothing compared to the Word War I that has been raging in the region. .
Re: (Score:2)
That's the problem with dictatorships. Shitty memes are only cooked up because low level drones believe their boss wishes it.
Dictatorship encourages everyone as a terrible extension of the boss.
Chinese elites are allowed to use Twitter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Some pigs are more equal than others, I guess.
Re: Chinese elites are allowed to use Twitter? (Score:2)
It's a tool for propaganda at this level. It's about countering noise with noise. Many people in larger cities still use VPNs to get at Twitter too, just to look at models or stupid things Trump says.
Re:Chinese elites are allowed to use Twitter? (Score:5, Informative)
The Great Firewall of China is much less monolithic than westerners often believe.
The degree of censorship, and what is censored, varies from place to place. Censorship is tightest in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Beijing. But if you go to places like Tianjin or Qongqing where there is little political activism, there is a lighter touch.
Even in Beijing, you can go to the business center in one of the big hotels, show your passport, and get unrestricted access to the outside world.
sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:5, Insightful)
Two wrongs don't make a right. If the Chinese gov't tried to pass a fake photo off as a real photo, they've "done wrong", even if there is an indirect element of truth to the image. Perhaps both nations need a good spanking, but for different reasons.
China is just getting ready for Taiwan! (Score:3)
China is just getting ready for Taiwan! and they want use images like this to make our Soldiers look bad / try to trun locals agent us
Re:Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:5, Insightful)
^^ This.
Calling out war crimes is fine (even encouraged). Doing it with fake images is a twist of the truth, and an obvious attempt to sway public opinion in their direction.
There is nothing hypocritical about asking China to apologize for using fake images in their criticism of another nation-state. Of course, at this point I don't expect the Chinese government to understand anything about truth and honesty. They saw an opportunity to criticize another group that has [rightly] criticized them in the past, and they took advantage of it (all while continuing to ignore serious complaints about their own human rights violations). Shame on them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet the "big story" is the fake photo and not the murder of 39 innocent people.
Claiming a moral equivalency here of "two wrongs" is absurd.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
come to Australia - the murdering of 39 people is in the news - constantly and rightly so.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
What's new is news. The investigation is continuing, with or without front page media coverage.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What you're describing re: the "big story" is an issue with the media, not with how nation-states should behave.
There is no moral equivalency in question. Two wrongs (not one) have occurred. And as someone already pointed out, "two wrongs don't make a right". I'm not sure why so many people here have difficulty understanding that both parties in a dispute can have faults of their own which they should address.
Re: (Score:2)
If they'd fought for the US, our President would have pardoned them.
Re:Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:5, Informative)
Depends wether it's a fake image posing as a real image, or an artwork which depicts a scene and represents a story in a graphical way.
If you look at the image itself, it is clearly an art work, not a real photo. It's merely a graphical way to represent the current allegations that are going around and under active investigation.
Re: Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:3)
The picture is in the article. Did you look? It's easy to tell its a piece of art work.
Re: Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:4, Insightful)
It's easy to tell its a piece of art work.
Maybe Western nations can start using provocative artwork in their official statements about China.
I like the suggestion, above, about an image with "Winnie butchering a few Uyghur kids". (Seems like a great task for the Reddit crowd...) If Australia posted such an image with an official statement condemning human rights violations in China, do you think that would be acceptable? Let's see how that goes over with Saint Xi.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe Western nations can start using provocative artwork in their official statements about China.
I like the suggestion, above, about an image with "Winnie butchering a few Uyghur kids". (Seems like a great task for the Reddit crowd...) If Australia posted such an image with an official statement condemning human rights violations in China, do you think that would be acceptable? Let's see how that goes over with Saint Xi.
Are we supposed to have a problem with that? The reason it won't happen is because our "overlords" get too much profit from their dealing with China. The Australian statements on this have been pathetic. 'please please be nice China you don't want to disturb our economic relationship... do you? '
Re: (Score:2)
There is already plenty of provocative artwork online covering most public figures. You can find all kind of works created using trump's image for instance. The brits even went to the extent of making a giant inflatable baby-trump.
There are currently allegations of australian soldiers committing war crimes in afghanistan, these allegations are headline news and are being actively investigated. Some people don't want to read through a long article, so a graphic which summarises the story can be useful.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's see how that goes over with Saint Xi.
The same way it went over in this case. Australia and China have been engaged in Word War I for decades. All they ever do is get their diplomats to make statements at each other. Nothing ever comes of it. Doctored image online? Send in a diplomat. China starts expanding their region in the south China sea? Send in a diplomat. Australian goes missing in China and is executed? Send in a diplomat. Australia puts a travel ban on Chinese students ... diplomat.
It's a war played out entirely in the comments sectio
Re: (Score:2)
That already happens all the time, especially on Twitter. Follow any China related hashtags and they are full of memes like this one.
That's why they made this image, they are copying what people keep tweeting at them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:2)
What's this "maybe it's art"? Look at it, make a judgement. It's like looking at a Dali painting and going, maybe it's art but either way it's propaganda against time pieces.
It's also nothing like propaganda from the cold war. It's produced from an individual with a strong photo realism emphasis. Cold War era propaganda is state sponsored. I am in Xining, there is plenty of propaganda and it looks nothing like this.
It's propaganda in the same way the Bible is because every American president claims to be
Re: (Score:2)
I don't care to make a judgment on the artistic merit of the picture. A thing can be propaganda whether it originated as art or not.
Neither the origin of the picture nor its visual style make it propaganda. It's propaganda because (and not only because) it's a state-distributed misleading depiction of an "enemy" power intended to fo
Re: (Score:2)
How so exactly? Define what makes it art, without a priori knowledge. It's photorealistic, if not an actual photo. It certainly doesn't look stylized or anything, past what a bad set of curves adjustments might do.
It looks like a photo, staged, CGed, or otherwise. Without context, or with deliberately misleading context, it would not immediately strike a reasonable person as a work of art.
Re: (Score:2)
Even the summary points out that it is in fact artwork, not a fake image.
It's not clear where the claim that it is "fake" came from, but it's not. It's clearly not intended to be real, no reasonable person could mistake it for a real image.
Whoever lied about it needs a spanking.
Re: Get spanked "down under" [Re:sad] (Score:2)
It's a bingo. So the fact people want to compare this to other issues in China is the biggest "whataboutism" I have seen in awhile and some of the most disgusting.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it a big surprise that people despise hypocrites? That's not the same thing as condoning or excusing what's been done, which it seems few if any are doing.
Re: (Score:2)
A disarming response might have been to acknolwedge the picture as an artistic criticism of a terrible but occasionally inevitable consequence
Re: sad (Score:2)
I hope you get modded up. Great comment.
Re:sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes what our SAS troops may have done is terrible. But the big difference is the Government is investigating them and will put them on trial. Where's China's investigation of the Tiananmen Square massacre? Where's China admission of how many were actually killed in that incident? Or the ongoing suppression of the Uyghurs? The alleged mass organ harvesting of prisoners, many who were merely imprisoned for being Falun Gong practitioners. The forced abortions on women who dared to have a second child under the one child policy?
What appalled Australian's is the absolute pure hypocrisy of China's gall to call out Australian war crimes when their own closet is stuffed full of much worse skeletons on a far larger scale that they wilfully ignore. Imagine the outcry from China if any Australian politician tweeted a similar picture taking aim at China. China's is a far too easily offended bully.
Re: sad (Score:2)
There is a film on Netflix called "One Child Nation". It's interesting to realize this was recorded in China with Chinese people discussing the policy relatively openly. No one in the film feels it was a good thing but many make it clear there was little choice.
This is the ultimate debate, is doing a terrible but necessary thing okay? Westerners call it the lesser of two evils. Chinese people generally considered everything you mentioned as terrible but also the lesser evil...
As for Tiananmen, China lear
Re: (Score:2)
It's also not yet clear what the Australian government will actually do. Some commentators have called for the complete disbandment of the SAS precisely because anything less would be latched upon as hypocrisy. But many people in the government and mili
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Let's be realistic- the military capabilities of Australia are largely for show at this juncture.
What's the true harm in reforming?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's nothing to do with offence or taking the high moral ground, it's propaganda. China competes with Australia for business in that part of the world, so anything which damages Australia's reputation is good for them.
Other countries do this to China, and rightly since they are guilty of human rights abuses, and so China does it back to them. It's really that simple, Twitter is the new battleground for international propaganda efforts.
Re: (Score:2)
No. We have every right to be appalled at China for using this as a political football. Criticism, sure, that's a valid consequence. Posting near photo-quality artworks of a scenario that never happened, designed for maximum outrage (i.e using a child), purely for the purpose of political gain, now that is galling.
It's also ra
Re:sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Not many (other than extremists) are saying that it is unacceptable for China to call this stuff out. The criticism of China is based on:
1) China calling it out on Twitter via an extremely immature and graphic piece of art is extremely unbecoming of a country that wants to be respected as the next global superpower. If China wants to become a cultural leader in this century, this childishness is not the way that they will gain influence.
2) There is very thick irony and hypocrisy in China using Twitter to call out human rights abuses when their totalitarian government doesn't even allow their citizens the ability to use Twitter. This breaches several of the UN articles of human rights - especially 18. Doubly ironic because the reason China keeps its citizens off social media is to prevent them discussing past Chinese human rights abuses such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
3) Given that Chinese citizens aren't allowed to use Twitter, the purpose of the tweet was not so much to call out Australia, but to attempt to drive a wedge between the Afghani people and Australians. What China doesn't want to admit is that Australia has implemented multiculturalism very well - probably the best in the world. If you are Afghani, you will be much better off living in Australia than living in China as there is far less racism - both institutional and in the general populace. The challenges brown people face when living in China are extreme.
Re: sad (Score:2)
If you are Afghani, you will be much better off living in Australia than living in China as there is far less racism - both institutional and in the general populace. The challenges brown people face when living in China are extreme.
This is a rather narrow statement. There are parts China that completely embrace these groups. It's common for Pakistani to marry Hui Chinese in a number of regions. While there are still some racial issues with Africans, by and large these issues are a minority though they often get a lot of press. I know a very tall, very big, black girl who lives here in Xining. She does get a lot of bad stares but I do too as an average build white male. This area is far more traditional and yet even here it's often
Re: sad (Score:2)
Uyghurs are Chinese Muslims but they are just one ethnic group which is Chinese and Muslims. There are a number of other ethnic groups in China which are Muslim and have no significant issue with the government. This fact is often excluded in the narrative found on western media.
Uyhgurs are seeing issues with the government because of a series of terrorist events perpetrated by members vote the ethnic group and how the motive behind these attacks was to foster an independence movement. This is effectively
Re: (Score:2)
Bollocks. I am not sure which things you are thinking about which special forces have allegedly done but bits that came out recently are merely about the 'rite of passage'. That just to show off when you don't feel you don't have any reason for it. Imagine what that means when soldiers are getting 'aggravated'.
So expect the whole thing to be the tip of the iceberg. Accompanying that is a long term coverup and a whistleblower (McBride) who has been persecuted. This isn't about a few rotten apples.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:sad (Score:5, Insightful)
*sigh* I'll just respond to this one:
* Frenchmen published anti-Muslim cartoon == freedom of speech. Chinese published art works based on facts == fake images
You do realize there's a big difference between a satirical magazine posting a cartoon and a senior government official posting a fake image, right? One is free speech, the other is a diplomatic incident. With all your pro-China-ness I would expect you of all people to understand that the context matters a lot.
Also, at least Australia publicly discusses their human rights violations. Can you say the same for China?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: sad (Score:1)
The door is wide open for political leaders to use social media to tout biases that are political incidents. Trump has completely blown that path open and China learns many tricks from the Western nations. Personally politicians should be required to not make any statements on these platforms.
As for debating human rights violations, the issue is understanding the context of governance. I talk to Chinese on the issue of Uyghurs and by and large they agree the community brought it on themselves. However u
Re: (Score:2)
There is a difference between a "fake image" that someone is trying to claim is real, and a work of art.
A work of art is often used to describe a story in a graphical way. As they say a picture paints a thousand words.
Obviously a cartoon is a work of art, but so is the picture being discussed here. Just looking at it you can tell it's obviously not a real photo.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You completely dodged my question about Chinese human rights violations.
Good attempted defense of your country, though. Saint Xi would be proud.
It's just sad that you're clearly completely missing the point. (though purposely, I suppose.)
Re: (Score:2)
You completely dodged my question about Chinese human rights violations.
"Chinese human rights violations"? as told you by the same western propaganda machine that also just found slaughtered Afghanistan children and Iraqis? The same propaganda machine which sold you the story of Iraq WMDs.
I'd bet you'd never visit China. You should go live there for a year and come back telling us how your human rights were violated.
Re: (Score:2)
I lived over there for multiple years and traveled fairly extensively. Thanks for coming, please try again next time.
Re: (Score:2)
So the fake imagine is of an Australian soldier cutting the throat of an afghan child. Across the period of 2009-2013 the crimes accused (the process has just begun) detail prisoner shooting, 2 counts of cruel punishment, and 23 counts of 'accessorie' unlawful killings (which is basically where they have said it was collateral damage, and t
Re: sad (Score:2)
Notice all the hypocrisy you point out is like a few years old at max. The hypocrisy goes back at least to the cold War. Yet you will be modded down because your position downplays the superiority of the western ethos...
Wow. (Score:1)
Your history looks a lot like you're hired by the CCP.
Have you earned your $0.50 today?
Chinese plagiarism out of control (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only did they copy art work, they've also copied Donald Trump's style of tweeting of false facts!
Re: (Score:2)
Diplomacy (Score:1)
The LNP's lack of diplomacy is the problem, they are arrogant, entitled idiots.
Australia is on a slippery slope and there is a great big pit full of shit at the bottom.
Hell, there's a great long list of fails for the Morrison government and it's just getting longer.
Re: (Score:2)
We were 'friends' as recently as 2014 when PM Abbott and President Xi signed a free trade agreement.
By taking foreign policy advice from Mike Pompeo, China retaliates by trashing Australian products. And so our exports such as barley, wine and coal are thrown under the bus.
Take down the truth because it's bad? (Score:2)
At what point do we draw the line between X being inappropriate and true, vs X being a recognized act of horror that's true and we need to remember?
The Chinese official in question should do nothing and offer no apology, the facts shouldn't change because they hurt someones feelings.
Re: (Score:2)
What truth? That an Australian soldier, grinning wildly, held a bloody knife to the throat of a child carrying a kid? Is that actually true?
If not, then an apology is certainly in order.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh that's a slippery slope you're on. Beware, lest your own country be similarly used for political advantage. You've now given a green light to that behaviour.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck australia (Score:2)
Add in this and it is obvious that China is not going to make for a good business partner.
Yeah, sorry, Australia... (Score:2)
You're some warmongering war crimes monsters too now. You ran with the Murica, you get criticised with the Murica. Boo hoo.
You do not like that depiction? Then don't do those war crimes, yer boody cunts!
Funny, how you react just the same as the Chinese when we show them their war crimes in art.
Re: (Score:2)
Why you think our side would care at all about accuracy when thinking up things to accuse the Chinese of is beyond me. Just give it a superficial shine of credibility and you're good to go.
All's fair in propaganda warfare.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm on the side of truth against bullshit and in these times that is a very disloyal thing to do.
Re: (Score:2)
Or are you suggesting that China doesn't have "re-education" and slave labor camps?
China is evil. It is run by evil people for the preservation and enrichment of their own power at the expense of the people they oppress. If you think that's bullshit, I defy you to back it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes you know China is evil and you will believe anything that confirms that. What I am saying is that people like Adrian Zenz and the writers from the Epoch Times know that , and it emboldens them to state whatever claim they find useful. Nobody is interested in contradicting them. In the end you get a total disconnect from the truth. You believe anything with 'China evil' in it.
And I have to prove you wrong? You're evil, prove me wrong.
I can tell you that the claim of 1 million imprisoned Uyghurs is based
Re: (Score:3)
China is committing genocide and enslaving its people. It is a brutally repressive police-state that does to its own civilians what the Australians are accused of, as a matter of normal conduct. China is shameless about the violence and cruelty it inflicts upon its own and those around them.
Australia investigated allegation
Re: (Score:2)
Yep... that's the difference. Actually punishing the perpetrators rather than lying and saying it never happened.
Yeah, well, what do you expect? (Score:3)
China is run by fascist scumbags. The West should have taken them down fifty years ago and now we're stuck with them.
Re: (Score:2)
But when your partner is a pack of genocidal slavers, I guess you shouldn't expect much. Or do business with them at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Communist, not fascist.
They're very obviously fascist.
According to Google, fascism is a right-wing ideology.
They're very obviously right-wing.
They changed the definition a while back.
Who did?
So if it's "art" it's okay with Twitter? (Score:2)
Can we call the 2020 election fraud claims art as well?
Re: (Score:2)
Turnabout? (Score:2)
So I guess China would be ok with us, say, "simulating" their oppression of Tibet?
Concentration-camping Uighurs?
Farming prisoners for organs?
ie with "pictures" of the "simulated" events?
C'mon folks: here's someone with no lack of their own windows, literally telling everyone it's cool to chuck rocks.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's google for political cartoons made to satirize Chinese atrocities and have ourselves a blast applying your rule equally.
You're using whataboutism to hide your shame. Pathetic.
Demanding an Apology Is Worthless (Score:2)
Demanding an apology is like demanding people like you: its counter productive.
Just because they're Chinese doesn't mean its the same thing as demanding the waiter brings you a doggy bag.
Either way, you'll be hungry again in an hour.
Re: (Score:2)
"His soldiers"? This happened under the leadership of Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, mainly the latter.
Re:Scott' Big Banana' Morrison is an idiot (Score:4, Interesting)
His soldiers are war criminals and killers and torturers and he complains about an artwork about it?
Aussie politics is almost as stupid as US politics - for a similar reason - the Murdock family controls most of their media. If you aren't aware that's the same people as are behind Fox News and thus largely responsible for Trump (and also, incidentally, Brexit in the UK). You can't expect to get sensible leadership out of a process like that. This is a perfect example of the Streisand effect. If Morisson had only shut up there would be nothing about this on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:3)
If Morisson had only shut up there would be nothing about this on Slashdot.
Oh, you have it wrong. Morrison *wants* the publicity. China has been bullying Australia on trade recently, and Morrison wants to be seen as "tough on China".
Better than a tit-for-tat trade war, I suppose. Depends how thin-skinned the Chinese are. As usual, everything is mostly about domestic politics.
Re: (Score:2)
I can believe you completely, and yet I'm not sure it takes away from my point at all. A sensible leader would not want to concede the human rights grounds to China and Australia already has enough of a bad reputation there based on the anti-refugee policies and similar without things like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are stating the obvious first up about not wanting a trade war.
Australia exports are over 30% to china, this represents a measly 2% of China's imports,
Not 2%, more like 4-5%. (You confuse Australia's share of China's exports vs imports. )
That 4% is important, but is commodities that can be sourced elsewhere. Which will create demand for Australia's exports elsewhere.
Education is an exception. If Chinese students stopped coming to Australia to study they will be hard to replace. But maybe that is a good thing - that business is full of problems.
Re: (Score:2)
That 4% is important, but is commodities that can be sourced elsewhere. Which will create demand for Australia's exports elsewhere.
yeah that aint happening. Coal and Iron Ore especially has been in oversupply for a long time with countries having huge stock piles and companies are running mines at reduced capacity to prevent oversupply completely killing the price, if you think for one second that China as a customer can be replaced you are completely clueless, Australia would be hard pressed to replace ANY of the capacity lost to China from elsewhere without taking huge hits to the price.
Re: (Score:2)
you are completely clueless, Australia would be hard pressed to replace ANY of the capacity lost to China from elsewhere without taking huge hits to the price.
I'll spare you some clues: As of 2019, Australia was 53% of global iron ore exports, and China was 69% of imports. Nobody wants to stop trade.
The only other exporter of note is Brazil, which is a total mess due to their own mini-Trump mishandling the pandemic. So I assume those numbers above will increase for 2020.
At best, China could outbid some of Brazil's existing customers for future contracts, leaving those customers with little alternative but to buy from Australia.
This disruption would be bad for
Re: (Score:2)
Australia makes up just over 2% of their imports
Nope. I already explained your error. Please create an account. Nobody reads AC posts because most of them are idiots. I only see you because it was a direct reply.
Re:Scott' Big Banana' Morrison is an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Alternatively... (Score:5, Informative)
The story here is that Chinese official channels are using fake imagery designed to intentionally provoke in a unhelpful way, creating more unrest. Though the unspoken part of the story to the rest of the world is that the reason they did this is because of an ever escalating trade dispute between China and Australia, as well as a suggestion to Australia to not 'get too close' to the US now that Biden will come to power.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
using fake imagery
No, calling it "fake" is just playing into Australian propaganda. Here [twimg.com] is the image, it's not "faked." There's nothing real about it either, it's basically a political cartoon. And of course it's intended to provoke people: it's political commentary. They're criticizing Australia's actions, that's necessarily provocative.
The other bit, the background on why they're doing this, that does matter and is informative. Although the notion that China would be warning Australia away from Biden is odd, given that
Re: (Score:2)
Its way to graphic to be excused as a cartoon.
Idiot. Kill any political cartoonists for pictures you didn't like lately?
That is just the PR line from china.
Except that it was produced by... well, not the Government.
The problem is that in the worst case, this inspires some crackpot to more acts of terrorism, surely the Chinese government don't want that.
Yes, the political cartoon is what'll do it- not the murder of the innocents.
If it had been made by an Australian, what would you say then?
I'm not sure it's entirely becoming for a Chinese government official to paste a political cartoon on the domestic issues of another country... but that's not the issue here.
You're intentionally conflating something as something else t
Re: Ah, another CCP agent promoting propaganda (Score:2)
The group think here is that anyone who defends China is a CCP agent. It's funny, it's literally a propagandist position, that anything that doesn't support your cause must be an enemy and as a capitalist you can only imagine that their motive is money... it's just more hypocrisy...