June 4, 1989 marked a global milestone with events in Poland and China that transformed the world political landscape. In Poland, the Communist Party held partially free elections, beginning a series of events that eventually led to the end of communist regimes in several Eastern European countries, including East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania. In Chinathe same day, the Chinese Communist Party ordered the military removal of thousands of students from the Tiananmen Squareresulting in arrests and deaths.
In Poland, the 1989 elections also marked a transition towards democracy, which eroded communist hegemony in Eastern Europe in the following years. The disappearance of the Soviet Union would be completed within a few years, signaling a monumental change in the global political structure.
In contrast, in China, students who demanded freedom of expression, due process, responsibility and democracy They were brutally repressed. He People’s Liberation Army acted to disperse protesters, arresting and in many cases killing protest leaders and their supporters.
Subsequently, as analyzed by Anne Applebaum in a note for Atlantic, the Chinese regime concluded that the physical elimination of dissidents was not enough. To prevent a democratic wave similar to that of Central Europe will reach Eastern Asia, measures were implemented to repress not only the people, but also the ideas behind the protests. Thus was born the Great Firewall of Chinaa cyberspace management tool that includes an elaborate system of blocks and filters that censor words like “Tiananmen,” “1989,” and “June 4.”
Unlike Polandwhere protests led to democratization, China perfected a strategy of repression that combined online surveillance with other tools of repression, such as security cameras and arrests. In regions like Xinjiangwhere the Uighur Muslim population is concentrated, the authorities have forced the installation of surveillance applications that monitor behavior and detect the use of virtual private networks.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the severe controls imposed by the Chinese regime generated the most energetic protests in years. In the cities of Beijing and Shanghai, young people who had never attended a demonstration spoke publicly about freedom. Specially in Xinjiangresidents came out to sing the Chinese national anthem, highlighting the phrase “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!”
In recent years, the surveillance approach China has resulted in problematic discoveries. Despite repression, anger at arbitrary power continues to lead to radicalization. During the pandemic, the Chinese regime faced significant protests and ended up lifting the strictest quarantines to prevent further public unrest.
In the Xinjiang Autonomous RegionHowever, the regime resorted to cutting-edge technologies, including voice recognition and data collection techniques. DNAto monitor the activities of the Uyghurs and prevent any form of dissent.
The antidemocratic propaganda infrastructure takes many forms, from educational programs to investment in international media. Xi Jinping’s regime has built a media empire with services such as Xinhua and CGTNwhich produce content in multiple languages and sell it for low prices or free. StarTimes, a satellite television company linked to the Chinese government, offers Chinese content, including news, movies and sports, in several African languages, conveying messages favorable to the Communist Party.
This way, Chinese propagandists seek to insert their point of view in the local press, often through covert operations and the creation of media networks. Confucius Institutes, although largely dissolved in the United States, flourish elsewhere, especially in Africa. These operations are supported by investment in media and the training of local journalists in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Cooperation between autocracies includes projects such as Telesur and HispanTV, which spread anti-democratic and sometimes anti-Semitic narratives. RT, with close ties to China in Africa, has expanded following the invasion of Ukraine, promoting anti-Western and anti-LGBTQ messages in autocratic countries.
These tactics, which include disinformation campaigns and social media manipulation, amplify existing movements, whether anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant or anti-democratic. Although they do not invent these movements, autocracies amplify them, creating a propaganda network that undermines global democracy.
Russiafor its part, It has also adopted an expansive strategy to influence global public opinion. As he began his invasion of Ukraine In February 2022, conspiracy theories emerged about biological laboratories funded by USA in Ukraine, declared by Russian officials and widely disseminated through accounts connected to QAnon and media like infowars and Fox News. Chinese state media They also participated in promoting these theories.
Studies indicate that this disinformation campaign was successful, undermining efforts to build solidarity with Ukraine and reinforcing sanctions against Russia, both in the United States and globally, especially in Asia and Africa.
This joint propaganda effort has created an international echo chamber, exacerbating perceptions of misinformation and weak governance in Western democracies.
The fusion of influences russian and China In the internal contexts of other countries it is also evident. The strategy of autocracies not only includes internal repression but also the manipulation of democratic ideals globally. By defining democracy and freedom as threats, both China as Russia They have focused their efforts on debunking these concepts, not only within their borders but also in democratic communities.
In the end, the common goal of these autocracies is to prevent the growth of democratic ideals from challenging their own power and to spread narratives of distrust and disinformation globally.
The recent protests in China, along with demonstrations in Russia, Venezuela and Hong Kong, illustrate why autocratic regimes have extended their repressive mechanisms into the democratic world. The collaboration between China and Russia, with the help of other autocrats and elements of the Western far right, focuses on discredit concepts such as human rights, democracy and freedom.
This manipulation of emotions has been widely replicated in the autocratic world, often as a defense against criticism of the regime in power. Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda for more than three decades, signed an “anti-homosexuality” law in 2014 that imposed life sentences on homosexuals who had sexual relations or married, and criminalized the “promotion” of a homosexual lifestyle. By focusing attention on the fight against gay rights, he consolidated his internal supporters and neutralized foreign criticism of his regime, describing it as “social imperialism”: “Outsiders cannot dictate to us; “This is our country,” he declared. Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, also avoids the debate on Hungarian corruption by hiding behind a cultural war, pretending that the tension with the American ambassador is due to issues of religion and gender. During a recent visit by American journalist Tucker Carlson to Hungary, Carlson declared that the Biden administration “hates” the European nation because “it is a Christian country,” thus hiding Orbán’s deep financial and political ties with Russia and Chinawhich have seriously damaged relations between the United States and Hungary.
The new authoritarians have a different attitude towards reality. While Soviet leaders tried to make their lies seem real, in Putin’s Russia, Assad’s Syria and Maduro’s Venezuela, politicians and TV hosts lie through their teeth without bothering to offer counterarguments when their falsehoods are exposed.
It is always said that the leaders of the popular opposition are puppets of foreign governments. Anti-corruption and pro-democracy slogans are associated with chaos and instability wherever they are used, whether in Tunisia, Syria or the United States. In 2011, a year of mass protests against a rigged election in Russia itself, Putin bitterly described the Orange Revolution as a “well-proven scheme to destabilize society,” and accused the Russian opposition of “transferring this practice to Russian soil.” , where he feared a similar popular uprising aimed at dislodging him from power.
Applebaum claims that Putin was wrong: no plan had been carried out. Public discontent in Russia simply had no other way to express itself than through street protest, and the Kremlin chief’s opponents had no legal means to remove him from power. Like so many other people around the world, They talked about democracy and human rights because they recognized that these concepts represented their best hope for achieving justice, and freedom from autocratic power. The protests that led to democratic transitions in the Philippines, Taiwan, South Africa, South Korea and Mexico; the “popular revolutions” that spread across Central and Eastern Europe in 1989; the Arab Spring in 2011; and, yes, the color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia; All of them were started by those who had suffered injustice at the hands of the Stateand who took advantage of the language of freedom and democracy to propose an alternative.
This is the main problem with autocracies: the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians and others know that the language of transparency, accountability, justice and democracy attracts some of their citizens, as well as many people. who live in dictatorships. Not even the most sophisticated surveillance can completely suppress it.
