Feels like all of it. The calls to resign seem like blatant propaganda when we had covid lock down protests in the UK and Germany and they ended up being marches of Neonazis and transphobes and other fringe right wing nut jobs. When Chinese people do it (also the scale is completely unknown) they are justified against an authoritarian regime. The hypocrisy…
When the BBC report on the social media discourse as well, it feels like they are reporting on CIA backed misinformation campaigns. How much of the online discourse stirring up Xi sentiment is actually misinfo being reported to the west as a broad public sentiment. I reckon its a lot.
If you read this shit with a critical eye towards British and western economic and military interests it feels plain to see. But for the average idiot lib they read this and think, ‘wow omg China is so authoritarian, the poor people there have no freedom and they cry out for support’. But what do you expect…
None. Western media isn’t seen and doesn’t affect Chinese people or the atmosphere there.
It’s entirely for western audiences. The question is which ones. I think probably just the normal distraction from the situation in Europe and the protests there. So if you search up protest right now, will you get directed to stuff about protesting your leaders in Europe about their energy policy and protests on that subject? No. The media, the tech companies now helpfully redirect you to the poor suffering Chinese who have it much worse than you after all (so settle down and freeze quietly prole) under the horrible see see pee. Furthers interests of trying to pry Europe away from China and could be the groundwork for a set of sanctions against energy imports from them or something.
Recall always, though Russia is the open target of this whole situation, the US is draining Europe dry, bleeding it of its manufacturing and advanced tech capacity, they are weakening a rival bloc before it can join with China or truly go its own way and threaten their hegemony.
Now I don’t disagree it could be part of a larger campaign to try and delegitimize Xi in the same way they did with Maduro though it will likely remain a media campaign given China’s strength and size and the lack of puppets of any viability in China who they could point to as “legitimate”.