We know how the media outside China is covering the coronavirus, but what about China’s domestic state media apparatus? What is Xi Jinping’s massive propaganda team telling his 1.4 billion citizens?
Well, here are some of the top stories driving Xi’s media machine on Monday. And as you’ll read, the overarching message is quite clear: the “war” against the coronavirus is a moment of destiny for the Chinese people, and America is the enemy.
As with other outlets, the PLA Daily and Dayoo News highlight an opinion piece that identifies the coronavirus pandemic as one example of the “big change” affecting international order. This change dynamic in social, economic, and political affairs is one China must grasp to its advantage, the author says.
China Youth Daily answers with a poem attributed to Xi, in which he glorifies his own response to the “Wuhan war plague.” Yes, you read that right — China itself is referring to the coronavirus with a “Wuhan” descriptor.
Moving on, Xinhua prevails on readers to note how the People’s Liberation Army “dared to fight hard, becoming an indispensable force in the heroic city’s anti-epidemic army.” Under Xi’s command, Xinhua adds, the army “launched several charges on the battlefield of epidemic prevention and control. From the land of [modern-day Hubei province referenced as Chu, a former Zhou dynasty state] to the inside and outside of the Great Wall, more than 10,000 medical personnel in the army are fully committed to the frontline treatment of the epidemic.”
The war message here is the same being employed by many Western leaders, including President Trump. The idea is to unify the people in a great national struggle.
Beijing Daily focuses on the spring season as a metaphor to underline what it claims is China’s great spring forward against the coronavirus. Interestingly, it also references a recent Daily Beast article on the Trump administration’s strategy to hold China to account for its coronavirus-related deceptions. The Daily Beast report shows, according to Beijing Daily, that Trump is concerned with only spreading lies. Beijing Daily then summarizes a Global Times article attacking Trump as having failed the world.
China Daily also attacks Trump next to its adoration-based “Xi’s moments” section.
Yet not all foreign leaders are as bad as Trump.
People’s Daily makes a great deal out of French President Emmanuel Macron’s most recent phone call with Xi. It’s worth noting here that Macron’s outreach to Xi is long-standing and distinctly incompatible with his claims to lead the global liberal movement. People’s Daily also advances the war message by noting the “offensive and defensive” war against the coronavirus in eastern China’s Jiangsu province.
Guangming Daily presents a message of global gratitude to China for its leadership against the coronavirus. Here we read of the Serbian president’s particularly glowing tributes to Xi’s Communist Party. Similarly, China Public Security Daily highlights the German ambassador’s thanking of the Ministry of Public Security on another matter. The ambassador “spoke highly of the achievements made by the Chinese police in combating counterfeiting and infringement of intellectual property rights.”
Aside from the hilarity of thanking China for standing up for “intellectual property rights,” it’s clear what’s going on here. Xi’s media machine is telling the people that, thanks to him and the Communist Party, they are winning, America is losing, and the world is unifying behind a new Chinese order.
In the context of existential threats to the party, notably the Hong Kong protest movement, it is clear that Xi has now decided to try and turn the coronavirus to his advantage.
However, it should go without saying that each of the aforementioned articles should and will be taken with a grain of salt. They come from a regime that has very little regard for truth or for the rights of the individual.
