The propaganda is also very strong on Chinese social media (especially Wechat). I leave in France and I know a few Chinese person that keep telling me that this war was mainly caused by USA, that the Ukraine president is a dictator and so on...
I mean, the confidence and elan with which a narrative is pushed by blatantly hiding contrarian views and even facts is fascinating to observe, especially when you're on the ground looking at stuff firsthand.
You really need to experience it to believe it.
That being said, bias does not automatically imply propaganda. Naturally someone raised in the UK/US is going to have a Western interpretation of actions and bias, but in most cases these are beliefs genuinely held. I'm sure as a British person I could find many areas where I disagree with you, and our particular views are coloured by cultural biases - but that does not make them propaganda IMO. Tech articles often contain ridiculous statements around encryption and the dark web, but it's most likely lack of understanding than propaganda.
I would say propaganda requires intent - usually to achieve a political aim at the behest of the government. Genuine propaganda is hard to conclusively find within the BBC - though I personally suspect some of the covid reporting contained a type of voluntary propaganda.
This is most certainly present, and is glaringly obvious when you're seeing events unfold firsthand and look at the reportage in western media very deliberately leave out happenings that don't tie in with the narrative being peddled. It definitely isn't just bias. It's wilful propaganda, with malicious intent.
For example, a writer for the Express won't write an article about how the British Empire screwed India because it will annoy the readership. It's not propaganda, it's people who don't know what they're talking about desperately fighting over shrinking advertising revenue.
And they will use government sources, adding little more than stenography to whatever message their government wants to push.
Let's put in this way.
One saw a black box.
One was told that the black box contains some nasty staff.
One knows that the above statement is biased.
One then claim that the black box contains the nasty thing.
See how bias anchored one's thought, even if clearly this guy had no first hand information to make any judgement at all. Yet still be able to have a mental state that clearly established.
In a way I'm glad this has all happened to show the few who remain faithful in media that it's all bullshit pushing some narrative.
This is all so blatant now that it's almost impossible to defend rationally.
For example, the Guardian's headline:
> World ‘narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe’, says US envoy to UN after Russia attack on Ukraine atomic plant - as it happened
Whereas Russia Today's headline and first line are:
> Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘shelling’ nuclear plant
> A fire broke out on Friday morning in a training building adjacent to the six-reactor Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which local Ukrainian authorities have blamed on shelling by Russian troops.
The Telegraph has this quote a way down the page[2]:
> "For the moment, we know that all these dangers (that there had been concern about) haven't materialised but that the fire was contained to an administration building."
I was genuinely shocked and worried when I read the Telegraph, until I saw the bit about the building, and then I see that RT is making that the important part of their reporting.
I'm not picking a side here, nor trying to dismiss genuine worries (I still think the fire was too close for comfort), however, I think it's interesting to see the ways the same events are reported on, and it's something I think should be allowed, at the very least to counter accusations of censorship in aid of propaganda.
[1] that phrase implies intention, I can't confirm that, of course.
[2] I know it's a "live blog" page but that wouldn't stop them putting the info in the summary at the top, nor dialling down the scary language.
[tele]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/04/russia-ukr...
[RT]: https://www.rt.com/russia/551189-ukraine-zaporozhskaya-nucle...
[graun]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/04/ukraine-n...
Think of it what you will but it would be wrong to discard it as mere propaganda. These are deeply held beliefs.
To see their power look at the French poll of who won them the World War. It became 20% in the recent decades from 57% for Russia
https://www.france24.com/en/20190601-who-won-wwii-russias-ro...
If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i? I don't know where you're getting "forgiven and forgotten" from given that you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand. The Holodomor, Katyn massacre, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact are all common offenders here.
And it was the collapse of the USSR + subsequent privatization of state enterprises at bargain bin prices that created the oligarchs that today are Putin's power base. The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"
That does not imply eastern European states joined the Soviet union willingly.
> If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i?
Unless Hawai'i joined willingly, it is by definition conquest, yes. I'm not aware of any subsequent nationality or ethnicity based mass killings, but if they took place, that is, again, genocide by definition.
> you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand.
You are correct, I don't fully understand that part of history. Could you explain how using military force to expand the Soviet empire wasn't conquest, or how the Holodomor wasn't genocide?
> The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"
You disprove your point in the same sentence that you make it. Russians look very similar to Ukrainians, and they've had McDonald's since 1990, while Ukraine got its first in 1997, and has less than half as many McDonald's per capita as Russia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonal...
A year ago Zelensky closed all opposition TV channels on the pretext they were pro-Russian. [0] Not one or two. All of them. Since then there is no opposition TV in Ukraine.
An extremely democratic move, isn't it?
[0] https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-oppositio...
And there was not even a court decision. He just unplugged them overnight without notice. How democratic.
It's not the same as forbidding certain words and jailing journalists for 15 years for not agreeing with the state.
Because quite a lot of people in China think US is organizing an Eastern NATO, to "destabilize" the whole region. For example, the nuclear-powered marine deal with Australia, etc. Biden’s first year was much harsher on China than Russia.
In 1999, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy, killing 3, that certainly did not help.
It probably doesn't help that this was a stated goal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
No it wasn't, and TPP had no security provisions at all.
Just look how many Asia countries joined the US-lead economic sanction/coercion. Very few.
We had one of those, it was called SEATO. There's been only negative progress since on that front.
> For example, the nuclear-powered marine deal with Australia
AUKUS involved countries already in NATO-like agreements with the US (UK is in NATO, Australia in ANZUS) so it doesn't really change much in terms of security alignment.
It does, because it pissed off France ( which also has territory in the Pacific) for no good reason, and also stated that the choice of nuclear subs is due to the Chinese threat. And also it pushed the delivery date of new Australian submarines by at least a decade, probably more.
Anti-US is a part of it, but from what I know, Chinese people do generally like Russia a lot more than most of the world. I think it’s kind of a culture and history thing, education is likely a big part. Chinese tend to favour Russia by default for many things, even if the US isn’t involved. The US involvement (perceived or not) definitely still contributes a lot to the general sentiment in this particular case, of course.
SEATO used to exist, and had the exact opposite effect. The destabilizing influence is an expansionist PRC.