The communist world is built on propaganda. It is not new. Remember the Sino-Indian war in 1962 when Beijing proclaimed that it was India who attacked China. A book recently published in Beijing, The Truth about the History of the Sino-India Border War, called the conflict ‘China’s counter-attack’. Mentioning the Indian prisoners of war (PoWs), who suffered so much, it says: “In the long-term goal of striving for friendship between the Chinese and Indian people and in accordance with the principle of lenient treatment of prisoners, which had always been upheld by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the treatment of prisoners of war by the Chinese side had far exceeded the provisions of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and many touching deeds had taken place.”
The truth is just the opposite. China never allowed any representatives of the Indian government or even the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the prisoners. The PoWs that I had the privilege to meet, all confirmed that they have been indelibly marked by the nightmarish months in Chinese custody.
The crux of propaganda is to depict as white what is black and vice-versa. One of the first to understand the importance of propaganda for communist regimes, if they want to survive, was Lenin, who recruited a special corps of propagandists to promote communist ideology. The Soviets’ objective was to rule the world. As Karl Marx proclaimed, ‘Workers of the world, unite!’
Stephane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panne, authors of The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression believed that Lenin feared unless other countries went communist, his own revolution would be doomed to collapse under economic failures. This is why Lenin decided to create a special corps of ‘useful idiots’.
Whether the term is from Lenin or not, is not clear, but: “these foot soldiers would push his revolution in every country—co-opting and subverting democratic processes, fomenting strikes, installing secret armies and, above all, propagandising according to Moscow’s dictates,” noted an article in The Investors’ Business Daily in 2013.
From its inception, the corps “became a cover and a tool of the Russian Communist Party’s activities in the international arena,” wrote Russian historian Dmitri Volkogonov.
In 1920, Lenin announced that the new corps (especially foreign ‘idiots’) should not be ‘doctrinaire but flexible’ and using ‘idiots’ from outside the Party would look more credible.Mao was to follow Soviets’ footsteps.
Cases of ‘idiots’ like Edgar Snow, who interviewed Mao Zedong, are well known. Israel Epstein, a Polish-born Chinese journalist was a rare case who became a member of the Communist Party of China—during his life, Israel Epstein was honored by Chinese political leaders Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao.
The tradition of the ‘useful idiots’ has continued till today.Recently, a rather unknown French author Maxime Vivas received a ‘thumbs-up’ from the Chinese Foreign Ministry ‘for his courage to reveal the truth and debunk lies about Xinjiang.’
Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the foreign ministry asserted that “more and more men of justice such as Maxime Vivas will stand out to tell the truth on Xinjiang to the world and expose Western lies”.
Vivas wrote a book titled ‘Ouïghours, pour enfinir avec les fake news’ (Uygurs, to put an end to the fake news).
Based on two visits to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2016 and 2018, Vivas praised China for its anti-terrorism efforts, the region’s development, and Beijing’s great job.
Another unknown French ‘author and philosopher’ is Sonia Bresley, who recently told Xinhua in a well-publicised interview: “The development and changes in Tibet are amazing.” She explained, “Since my first visit to Tibet, the development and changes there over the past ten years have been amazing. The living standards of the local people have improved significantly. At the same time, the Chinese government has made great efforts to protect Tibetan traditional culture.”
Bresley asserted that she was particularly impressed by the development of Tibetan-Chinese bilingual education, something disappearing fast in Tibet. There are more such examples of those who, for one reason or another, are seen defending China’s totalitarian regime.
According to Axios, a serious US think-tank: “New foreign agent filings are finally detailing a massive Beijing propaganda operation that’s fueled a six-fold increase in disclosed Chinese foreign influence efforts in the United States in recent years.”
Axios explains as to why it matters: “Propaganda is central to China fulfilling its geopolitical aspirations, and its efforts to sow discord and disinformation in the U.S. have very real consequences for the American business, political and social climates”.
It cites a report from the Centre for Responsive Politics, “Chinese foreign agent spending has skyrocketed from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year.” Axios believes that China is today the top spender on foreign influence operations in the US.
The propaganda is multi-pronged, China not only invests abroad, but many ‘scholars’, ‘journalists’, or ‘experts’, like Vivas, are regularly invited to Xinjiang or Tibet.
For example on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the 17-Point agreement (May 23, 1951), which marked the end of the Tibetan State as an independent nation (China calls it, the ‘Liberation of Tibet’), an International Forum of Tibetan Think Tanks was held in Beijing on May 16.
According to Xinhua: “More than forty Chinese and foreign experts and scholars conducted discussions through online and offline methods.” The theme of the forum was ‘Peace and Development’.
Wang Linggui, vice president and researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences parroted Xi Jinping: “Peaceful development and shared development are the common expectations of the people of all countries in the world, especially in today’s world, where the interests of countries are intertwined. All countries should abandon ideological prejudices…”
An American propagandist, Tan Gorenf, said to be a professor at New York State University gave the Keynote Address and said that the West depicts a fictitious Tibet “spreading the mysterious image of Tibet, or fictionalising the perfect Shangri-La where people don’t need to work and won’t grow old.” Tom Grunfeld, a usual participant to these fora, also attended.
Xinhua reported: “Dozens of experts and scholars from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Norway, Nepal, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and other countries and regions on the day, focusing on the great achievements of Tibet’s social development in the past 70 years.”
The fact that most of these scholars are not known in their own countries does not seem to bother Beijing. The ‘experts’ praised the achievements of Tibet’s development, the quality of the environment or the coordinated development of the Himalayan region (what this means for India is not clear).
The time has come for India to confront its own ‘useful idiots’ serving Beijing’s interests; often under ‘academic’ garbs, they are deeply harming India.
The writer is a noted author, journalist, historian, Tibetologist and China expert. The views expressed are personal.
According to Axios, a serious US think-tank: “New foreign agent filings are finally detailing a massive Beijing propaganda operation that’s fueled a six-fold increase in disclosed Chinese foreign influence efforts in the United States in recent years.” Axios explains as to why it matters: “Propaganda is central to China fulfilling its geopolitical aspirations, and its efforts to sow discord and disinformation in the U.S. have very real consequences for the American business, political and social climates.”
