China’s promotion of Russian disinformation indicates where its loyalties lie – CNN

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By Simone McCarthy and CNN’s Beijing Bureau

Updated 1:30 AM ET, Thu March 10, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping walk down the stairs as they arrive for a BRICS summit in Brasilia, Brazil in 2019. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping walk down the stairs as they arrive for a BRICS summit in Brasilia, Brazil in 2019.
Residents watch a TV screen showing news about Ukraine at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on February 25, 2022.Residents watch a TV screen showing news about Ukraine at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on February 25, 2022.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a daily media briefing in Beijing, China, March 19, 2021. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a daily media briefing in Beijing, China, March 19, 2021.
A large Ukrainian flag with the slogan "We Stand With Ukraine" written on it in Chinese characters is seen on the outside wall of the Canadian Embassy on March 1, 2022 in Beijing, China. A large Ukrainian flag with the slogan "We Stand With Ukraine" written on it in Chinese characters is seen on the outside wall of the Canadian Embassy on March 1, 2022 in Beijing, China.

    How CNN reported this story:
    Since international reporting is a highly controlled and regulated industry in China, only a select number of state media organizations, such as Xinhua and CCTV, have permission to report international news. For this story, we selected 14 Chinese media accounts with nearly or more than 10 million followers on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform that reaches more than half a billion monthly users and is popular in China. These accounts included major outlets such as Xinhua, China News Service, CCTV, the People’s Daily, and the Global Times. We collected all of the posts related to Russia or Ukraine via a keyword search published by these accounts between February 24 and March 3, the first eight days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
    We then examined posts that were shared more than 1,000 times and evaluated each of these — more than 300 — about their political preference. Reporters classified posts as neutral, pro-Russia, pro-Ukraine, anti-US/West and pro-China. Posts were sometimes categorized in multiple categories, such as pro-Russian and anti-West. We analyzed the source and wording of the news stories to determine their categories.
    Because the analysis focused on stories that got the most play on the highly-controlled social media platform, CNN’s findings may not be representative of of all posts shared by state media outlets on Weibo.

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/china/china-russia-disinformation-campaign-ukraine-intl-dst-hnk/index.html

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