Great Translation Movement

After the outbreak of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese government took a pro-Russian stance, disseminating propaganda in favor of Russia through state media outlets like the CCP-owned tabloid Global Times while censoring pro-Ukrainian voices.[5][6]

On 24 February 2022, the day the invasion began, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China published a Mandarin version of the Soviet military song Katyusha on the Chinese video streaming platform Bilibili, which was interpreted as providing support to Putin and treating war as entertainment.[7]

Two days later, state media outlet Horizon News (Chinese: 世面新闻) appeared to have accidentally posted official censorship instructions on Russia-Ukraine coverage on Weibo. The instructions indicate that content favorable to the West or detrimental to Russia may not be published,[5][8][9] as shown below:

From now on, Ukraine related (Weibo) tweets.

...unfavorable to Russia, pro-Western must not be sent. Show me the original text before you send (the tweet).

Comments are controlled, screened first, then appropriate comments are put out, whoever posts is responsible...

According to a Voice of America report, a large number of controversial posts appeared on Chinese social media in the early stages of the war,[10] a large portion of which supported the invasion launched by Russia, expressed agreement with the Russian government, accused NATO and the United States of being responsible for the deterioration of the situation in Ukraine, or praised Putin as a heroic figure.[6][11][12][13]

Anti-war voices within the Chinese public opinion space were strongly attacked,[7][14][15] and many users were either deleted, muted, or blocked by Chinese social media platforms.[11][12][14][16][17] A large number of reports indicate that pro-Russia opinions now dominate mainstream Chinese public opinion.[6][5][10][11][12][13]

In addition, some widely circulated posts on the Chinese internet contained crass commentary and jokes about "beautiful Ukrainian women" and expressed a willingness to "take in 18-to-24 year old Ukrainian girls to shelter them from the dangers of war." Some reports from February and March indicated that the safety of Chinese people in Ukraine was being threatened after these jokes received exposure in the foreign press and on social media, which incited anti-Chinese sentiment in Ukraine. In late February, social media platforms Sina Weibo, Douyin, and WeChat deleted large numbers of posts joking about the war and penalized accounts making similar posts.[18][19][20][21]

Some netizens advocated for Chinese unification by force with Taiwan through the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[22]

The Great Translation Movement originated on several Chinese-language subreddits. Participants called for commentary that supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the Chinese internet to be translated and disseminated on foreign social media platforms. They sought to "let the people in more countries know that the Chinese people are not hospitable, welcoming, and kind as depicted in official foreign-facing propaganda, but rather arrogant, populist, and totally lacking in empathy," indicating that they hoped the Chinese people could "truly integrate themselves with civilized society and feel ashamed for their own foolishness."[23][24][25][26]

In addition, the movement called for monetary support for the Ukrainian people. Within the first week of its establishment, donations made publicly by the organizers on Reddit reached approximately $10,000.[27]

On March 2, one of the subreddits organizing the movement was shut down by Reddit for "exposing privacy of others." One of the participants claimed the ban was in response to the doxing of a Weibo user who allegedly blocked all money transactions via SWIFT from Shanghai to Ukraine.[23][28] Some claimed that the Reddit ban was due to Chinese long-arm internet censorship.[29] The Great Translation Movement then moved to other platforms such as Twitter and Pingcong.

On March 8, participants began to translate material related to the Chinese government's COVID-19 mandates. The scope of the movement began to broaden, from an anti-war message to one concerning freedom of speech.

On March 19, Pingcong employees were detained by the Chinese government after starting a channel for the movement on Pingcong's home page.[30]

As of April 2, the movement's Twitter account had approximately 74,000 followers.

On April 2, several users reported that the official Twitter account of the Great Translation Movement had been temporarily restricted. On the same day, the American anti-communist artist LeLe Farley expressed support for the movement and opposition to the Twitter suspension.[31][32]

The restriction was removed on April 3.

During the lockdown in Shanghai, The Great Translation Movement started to report and translate the situation during the lockdown and some CCP officials' positive remarks towards Zero-COVID policy, where the content is no longer limited on the Internet. One of the most circulated posts was about epidemic prevention workers' killing of a dog whose owner tested positive to COVID-19.[33]

Many overseas Chinese people support the movement, including a former CCP official, political scholar Cai Xia. She made the following comment:

...This translation not only exposes the CCP's totalitarian ideology that poisons the Chinese people, ...it also reminds global governments and people to be wary of the infiltration and poisoning of the CCP's external propaganda, false information, false narratives, and misleading public opinion space.[34]

Also, some Chinese dissidents support the movement because it creates "a dilemma for Chinese censorship authorities."[35] If such authorities censor the pro-Russia comments on social media, they will be subject to criticism from Chinese populists and nationalists; otherwise, they will discourage the global audience.[35]

Some Chinese people in North America contend that the movement will intensify xenophobia against Asian Americans.[23] Furthermore, DW also noted that misogynistic comments about Ukrainian women were not just limited to mainland China, but Taiwan as well, with some Chinese officials even accusing "Taiwanese separatists" of pretending to be mainland Chinese while posting such comments.[36]

CNN noted that media experts cautioned that "the posts do not show a holistic view of public opinion in China and appear to at least partially be selected for shock value -- but could still be useful in bringing these elements of China's media sphere to light." They also noted the group's own biases, such as its comparisons of China with Nazi Germany[2]

Han Yang, a former Chinese diplomat who now supports the Great Translation Movement, has stated that he disagrees with the desire of some members of the movement to paint the Chinese people as cruel and bloodthirsty, which he believes helps Chinese state-run media discredit the movement.[37]

Chinese state media criticized the movement.[2][38] Journalists in the CCP-owned tabloid Global Times claimed that the movement is "a farce" backed by western media such as Voice of America that is selectively translating extreme commentary from the Chinese internet.[38][39]