The Wall Street Journal (3/7/21) accused Chinese media of “invoking the woke themes of American progressives as a propaganda weapon against the US.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/7/21) has accused a major Chinese newspaper, and by extension the People’s Republic of China, of exploiting progressive rhetoric around racial justice to create division in the United States.
The Journal‘s target was an editorial in the Communist Party–owned newspaper Global Times (2/23/21), which complained that the US, Britain and Canada were pressuring China on human rights. The Journal editorial board accused the party paper of using “woke” language:
Note the use of “white supremacy” and “diversity” and “civilization superiority,” which come straight from the progressive critique of America as a country that is “systemically” racist and oppressive. The Global Times editors may be crude, but they’ve obviously been reading the New York Times. Their dismissal of [Sen. Tom] Cotton as racist is what you see on progressive Twitter.
The Journal suggested that the Chinese government was following the playbook of the Soviet Union, which reminded the world of the “social and antiwar turmoil of the 1960s” to turn world opinion against Washington. While implying that concerns of US racial injustice are overstated, the Murdoch-owned broadsheet said the Global Times’ “invocation of woke ideology shows they realize its threat to American confidence and purposes.”
Not only did the Wall Street Journal argue that Chinese “wokeness”—a dismissive term used to deride campaigns against racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia—is a danger to conservatism, it depicts it as an existential threat to the survival of the US republic—whether employed by Communists abroad or social justice activists at home. If a Chinese newspaper can support the claims made by Black Lives Matter, then somehow Black Lives Matter must be a foreign agent of a rival power, the suggestion goes.
The Journal distinguished today’s progressives from the noble civil rights activists of the early 1960s, because the latter wanted to “match American practice with its founding principles,” thus indirectly acknowledging an essential US goodness, while the former are “woke activists” who “find America fundamentally flawed,” an entitled professional elite who worry more about the “Pentagon than they do Chinese censorship.”
The latter point by the Journal is an old deflection, but it has an obvious counter-argument: A US citizen has more responsibility for and agency to change conditions at home than in a foreign power like China. And while the Journal cites repression of Tibetans and Uighur Muslims, these are hardly overlooked issues in the United States. The Free Tibet movement has long had support among celebrities (Hindustan Times, 3/21/08); concerts for Tibet were all the rage in the 1990s (Rolling Stone, 8/8/96), as it was a major cause promoted by the Beastie Boys, and the concerts featured left-wing bands like Rage Against the Machine. Ill-treatment of Tibetans has been covered in the left-wing press (The Nation, 2/26/09; Jacobin, 2/21/17; In These Times, 4/7/05). And US human rights organizations have kept a close eye on the Uigher issue. It’s not like these concerns are unheard of in the United States across the political spectrum.
But acknowledging left critics of China would undermine the Journal‘s guilt by association: If Chinese editorialists think tapping into American wokeness is a way to divide and conquer the US empire, then any American with an LGBT flag or Black Lives Matter flag is either knowingly or unknowingly doing Beijing’s bidding.
The Global Times editorial (2/23/21) attributed white supremacy to the “Five Eyes”—the English-speaking intelligence alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The Global Times editorial cited the rise of neo-Nazi rhetoric and organizing around the world, particularly its growth in the Trump wing of conservatism. “Hostility towards immigrant groups and non-Western countries became the realistic carrier of this white supremacy,” it said, pointing to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas’s call “for 90 million Chinese Communists to be consigned ‘to the ash heap of history.’”
As FAIR.org (2/16/21) has noted, the Journal and its siblings in the Murdoch empire see the threat of wokeness coming not just from left-wing activist groups, but from the for-profit corporations that right-wing media are more accustomed to lauding. That the vanguard newspaper of the investment class sees social justice as so dangerous that it has felt the need to attack major American companies for their pro-tolerance public relations campaigns and to shine light on a Chinese newspaper with much less American readership is telling.
Certainly, one can accuse the Global Times of cheap whataboutism—the attempt to dismiss concerns about one’s own country’s human rights by citing human rights problems in other countries. But whatever one thinks about the limits to their editorial independence, Chinese media have a journalistic obligation to report on racial injustice in the United States. US hate crimes are increasing (BBC, 11/17/20), with a documented increase in anti-Asian violence (NBC, 2/12/21; Human Rights Watch, 2/12/21). The riot on Capitol Hill aimed at annulling the 2020 presidential election exposed the violent potential of far-right militia groups and conspiracy theorists.
And the Global Times is right to target Cotton. He has defended slavery (BBC, 7/27/20) and denied the existence of systemic racism (Newsweek, 2/26/21). The Arkansas ACLU office called his anti-protest bill racist. His infamous New York Times piece (6/3/20) calling for military suppression of Black Lives Matter protesters was considered so outrageous that it forced the resignation of the paper’s top opinion editor (Politico, 6/7/20).
The Wall Street Journal‘s linkage of a foreign foe to the paper’s domestic enemies is a dangerous set up—an omen that the paper will not only push for an aggressive cold war against China, but will bring that cold war home, vilifying racial and social justice activists as traitors and enemies of the state.
I imagine they were sorely tempted to call US activists “yellow travelers”, but determined that would be better left to Fucker Carlson and ilk.
If anything is deserving of being relegated to the dustbin (or cesspool) of history
It’s the USA’s aggressively militaristic Foreign Policies.
The only legitimate basis possible for the Foreign Policy of ANY nation is the Estrada Doctrine, which consists of the following three principles:
1.- Non-Invention in the Internal Affairs of other Sovereign Nations;
2.- The Resolution of International Disputes and Conflicts through Diplomacy and Negotiations; and
3.- Respect for the Right to Self Determination for All Peoples.
The essence of the Estrada Doctrine is consistent with Benito Juarez’s well known statement:
“Among nations as among individuals, respect for the rights of others brings peace”.
America needs to comprehend that, urgently.
Yeah, but the United States government and the global private finance interests it represents would turn #3 into an excuse to invade a country like Syria. Or foment a coup where the right-leaning non-indigenous population wasn’t happy with the outcome of a democratic election.
“Wokesness” may be a “dismissive term”, but the movement, exactly as it presents itself (no dismissve caricature required), is despised well beyond the WSJ editorial board.
You don’t have to be a monarchist or proto-fascist to be appalled by the likes of “White Fragility”. Watching as every endeavor from track and field to the arts is permeated by the professional social grievance industry is about as welcome as a world run by the HR department. And of course any resistance is evidence of a diseased mind and an affirmation of the truth of the woke. The tyrants of the world are exalting…
Or are we goring the wrong ox?
To jillH,
Let me ask you:
In sincerity and not in judgment…I ask:
Is “wokeness” as widespread as you claim; “track and field to the arts”? Or….are you buying into the way it has been framed? You speak in disparaging and sociopathic ways, just like the professional right-wing establishment; which includes many in the Democratic Party as well. Is this all you have?
In case you fancy yourself as “progressive,” why are you openly speaking the same dog-whistle language as the right-wing faux-libertarians do? They claim to hate social justice and diversity, well, …really?
In case you are “progressive,” have you gotten so philosophically lazy, that you have allowed yourself to be trolled by the right? You tell me. Why talk about this in the same language as “the lost cause”; hateful, solipsistic disposition those of the fake-ass divided states of the confederacy thought about unity….
In case you are a Newscorp Murdochian, the thing I don’t get about you right-wing assholes who blame “wokeness” for all the ills of society, is the way you act as if there is no value whatsoever, in trying to put ourselves in others’ shoes.
A lot of you claim to be “Christian” and then behave exactly the opposite of Christ. How do you justify your politics? As if Jesus would be against helping those who get singled out and preyed upon by a profoundly bigoted system…yeah right. This especially baffles me, coming from those of you whom claim to be “spiritually” inclined.
You tell me, how else, besides speaking up and creating a way to talk about it, are we to address and overturn systemic oppression? What is your plan of attack to right-the-wrongs of hundreds of years of systemic psychopathy? I’m listening….
We’ve all heard how much you hate “wokeness”…ad-nauseam….so what do you offer instead? I’m not hearing any solutions from you all. Are you proposing we just ignore the oppressive machinations of the system? Are you saying they don’t exist?
What do I offer instead? Say, a world not run by a twitter mob and a summary judgment court in perpetual session, policing prohibited thoughts, utterances and incorrect attitudes?
And “solutions” how? You think the world and its myriad evils has a solution — and that you, with your strictures, censures and prohibitions, possess it? This combination of the managerial mind and the urges of the Inquisition is quite something.
Replies to the few comments which appear on this site sound like an in-house affair, as if the authors themselves are responding. Or do you have policing squad dedicated to forbidden expression?
To jillH,
What world are you talking about, that is “run by a Twitter mob?” The Twitter world? Last time I looked, the actual real world, is being run by the same damn people who were pulling the strings when I was born – a long ass time ago.
I don’t even mess around on Twitter, so if you are trying to say there is some sort of Twitterfication of the way I am communicating to you, excuse me.
The FAIR comment section is the only place you’ll ever find my brain droppings…
Sorry you think there is some conspiracy from the authors, I’m just a dumb ass EXTRA! reader from way back, trying to figure out what people (like you) are even talking about? I don’t see some great conspiracy of “wokeness,” I see more people complaining about it than anything else.
If you feel so squeezed by “PC” culture, whining about it here will probably get you nowhere. I suggest you go join one of the movements. If for no other reason, just so you can go see these are actual people we’re talking about here. People, whose existence, the mere mention of in certain ways, you seem to loath.
Try getting your hands dirty before going all in on the idea that it is them who are the problem and not the dicked-up system. Okay?
Whichever way you go, always make sure to have fun with it and don’t take yourself so seriously.
Cheerio Foolio.
The crying shame is, the woke are even less appealing than, say, the banking or the military industrial entertainment complex. With the endless attitudinal requirements, the cherished personal pronouns, thedemands for [other people’s] self-criticism and abject displays of contrition, the “White Fragility” dogma and the tireless policing of the “hurtful” — jeez, what an attractive program!
Between you and the Republicans, lordy — you must be proud!
Okay, I heard you the first three times,
All you’re doing now is repeating yourself.
Figures, my advice never sinks in. All it did here, is just “add a vice.”
I wrote “don’t take yourself so seriously” as a suggestion. To me, this means, one need not be afraid of what they find while having a little introspection.
One of the most valuable things I’ve been told in life was this:
“Don’t forget, when you point your finger at others, there are three pointing back at yourself.”
Hopefully, you are capable of looking inward at your self? If not, it’s real easy – you are not your unjustified fears.
There is no such thing as a Twitter mob. They are not the people out here in the actual world who are doing all the damage; killing, redlining, and vote suppressing.
If you can give me a single example in empirical reality of one of the following:
1) Where systemic “wokeness” resulted in whole communities being systematically precluded from full participation in society.
2) Where a whole group of politically incorrect curmudgeons were rejected from being able to seek housing because they weren’t woke enough.
3) A single person who was targeted, hunted down, then killed by a Twitter mob.
Then I’ll go rethink my position.
Otherwise, all you have is a bunch of blame-game nonsense made of Gored Ox Meat…..who is it again, that is doing the “wrong” ox-goring?
At least you got that one “right”….. ; )
To jillH,
By all means….don’t listen to me, go for what you know. If lamenting wokeness makes you happy, then stay with it.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, and I’m definitely no crusader trying to solve all the worlds problems at once.
Sorry if you felt judged, policed, stifled, bullied, brow-beat or any of that….this was not my intention.
Plato was correct, (the allegory of Plato’s Cave)…once a person takes the shackles off, and leaves the cave, it is impossible to try and convince the others back in the cave, to see they are looking at nothing but shadows, fake bogeyman that do not exist.
I see “wokeness” as the same made-up-shit as the shadows Plato’s prisoners were terrified of. The real harm was their shackles and the cave itself, and yet they focused their fears at the thing which was least harmful, and yet the most misunderstood.
This is all I have to say about this, peace!
This is “all you have to say” — for the nth time? The woke sure love to lecture, don’t they?
And poor Plato…. If any group was ever in love with the shadows on the wall, or inside their (its? they? them?) skull, it’s the social justice brigade. Time was, the Clinton/Obama types used identity politics to avoid the thorny matter of class. Now look who’s doing it….
So the social justice activists of the sixties were okay because they hearkened to a better past, just wanted to correct this little defect? Bull. They were okay because they were fifty years ago. When they were active in the Sixties, did the WSJ laud their activism? I’ll bet it attacked them in much the same way it attacks today’s progressives.
Good point! I lived through the 60’s as a teenager who started following politics (from a left/progressive perspective) in the 8th grade and my recollection is exactly as you hypothesize — the conservatives were virtually ALWAYS trying to link everything to ‘the Red Menace’ or ‘creeping Communism/socialism’, especially hard-core business publications like the WSJ. They were going along with the FBI in accusing MLK Jr of being a communist, or a ‘tool’ of communists. Of course NOW they ‘have a different recollection’..?
Note: It was interesting to read (a decade or so ago) Noam Chomsky write that surprisingly the regular pages of the WSJ actually have pretty good objective coverage, whereas the Opinion page is where they go-off on their right-wing rants. He attributed this to the idea that businessmen want objective, factual info to make the best business decisions they can, NOT a lot of biased propaganda.
Hm, what’s more dangerous to the people of the US and the world, the Pentagon or Chinese domestic censorship? Wow, that’s a tough one, Mike Liston