Since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the quantity and virulence of antisemitic content on China’s tightly controlled internet — especially on its social media — have skyrocketed. This unprecedented surge in antisemitism online in China could be possible only with the blessing of the Chinese government, which appears to be using anti-Jewish hate as a tool of its anti-U.S. and anti-Western diplomacy.
Comments comparing Jews to Nazis are pervasive on videos relating to the Israel-Gaza war on one of China’s largest video-sharing platforms, Weibo. State-controlled media outlets have been spreading conspiracy theories about the American Jewish community online as well, including the idea that a small number of Jewish Americans control the vast majority of power and wealth in the United States. A false statistic along those lines, originally posted on Oct. 10 by state broadcaster China Central Television, went viral online, becoming a Weibo trending “hot topic.”
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Since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the quantity and virulence of antisemitic content on China’s tightly controlled internet — especially on its social media — have skyrocketed.
A false statistic along those lines, originally posted on Oct. 10 by state broadcaster China Central Television, went viral online, becoming a Weibo trending “hot topic.”
When Keyak gave an interview last month in Brazil calling out China for using antisemitism as a tool of its anti-U.S. diplomacy, the local Chinese Embassy protested loudly.
“The government created an environment where it is easy for antisemitic content to thrive,” Yaqiu Wang, Freedom House’s research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, told me.
By putting forth the old conspiracy theory that Western democracies are secretly run by a small cabal of Jews, rather than subject to legitimate elections, Beijing seeks to convince its domestic audience that China’s system is superior.
The Chinese government’s state media and propaganda reach is worldwide, and sowing distrust in Western democracy is a core pillar of China’s international diplomacy.
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