Transnational Institute47K subscribers
644,564 views Mar 13, 2025
After October 7th, Israel’s embassy in China launched an aggressive campaign to sway public opinion—but it backfired. From spreading misinformation about hostages to enlisting foreign embassies for support, their efforts only fueled stronger pro-Palestinian sentiment online. Chinese netizens quickly exposed false claims, forcing Israeli and Western embassies to shut down their comment sections. In From Global Anti-Imperialism to the Dandelion Fighters, Zhang Sheng explores why China’s stance on Palestine remains firm and how young people are shaping the conversation.
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How this was made
Auto-dubbed
Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more
Transcript
in the Chinese internet they use this
very poetic language to refer to the
palanan fighters and they refer to the
fighters as dandelion the flower
dandelion so the Israeli Embassy in
China has been very busy following
October 7th until basically today and
after the October 7th they're trying to
force the Chinese government condemn the
attack which the Chinese government
refused and so they turned to the public
they started to publish their own
diplomatic statement on Chinese social
media as you know like China has its own
social media system so we don't use
Twitter we use this one important
platform called way boy basically
Chinese version of Twitter and is really
their Embassy and consulate each of them
have one account one official account on
this platform so they started to spread
lot of uh public criticism to the
Chinese official diplomatic stance which
is very rare in China's diplomatic
protocol experience because you know
it's a totally China controlled platform
normally foreign embassies they just
tweet something like for protocol for
like ritual type of thing like say happy
new year or something like that on those
social media they don't publicize their
disagreement or dispute with a Chinese
government but Israel are doing that
they started to spread misinformation
trying to kidnap the the Chinese public
opinion on the Israeli site the most
important case is one of the hostages
who was held in Gaza name is Noah
agamani she's her mother is Chinese and
she's isra citizen while the Israeli
Embassy was claiming that she's Chinese
National and this is just not a correct
information this is a false information
and the Israelis probably know this from
the beginning but they don't care and
then all of those official account of
the Israeli Embassy have been
emphasizing that oh we have a Chinese
National being kidnapped in Gaza and
Chinese government should come out and
do things and some of the Chinese nans
just get cheated by this misinformation
and believe that and started to like
saying a lot of things like asking the
government to either condemn the attack
or like try to collaborate with Israelis
and um the one most interesting post
made by the Israelis is like they by the
Israeli official Embassy is like they
like portray Netanyahu as some sort of
uh philanthropist gentleman that he his
heart was broken after he saw this news
of the kidnap so that he reached out the
Chinese and asking like pleading the
Chinese to help without diplomatic uh
Norms like just because this thing is so
important it's a common
National of both China and Israel that's
the rhetoric that they used in the
propaganda and this thing became so
important that the Chinese official
spokesman of the foreign Ministry has to
answer to this question in q&as and the
Chinese official media interviewed the
mother of the hostage and this thing
later ended very badly because the
mother of the hostage was basically
telling the camera says yes I'm Israeli
and you Chinese have to help me it's
your responsibility we don't care and
that thing is just like making the
Nationalist sentiment of her supporters
like fading away right because they
support this thing because they thought
oh it's a national of China and then
later they found out that's not the case
and probably they are not sharing the
same nationalist sentiment so this thing
ended quite badly and also another type
of spreading misinformation is spread
misinformation about what is happening
in Gaza you know like the Israel Embassy
as they have been doing in every single
Western countries they have a lot of
programs to build connections with
Scholars with intellectuals with media
and things like that and during the war
in Gaza they were able to basically get
one state Affiliated very high level
Chinese scholar like some type of
authority type of figure to speak in
favor of them said
that everything from Gaza is just fake
news and he used the words that zero
person has died in the Israeli
bombardment of the Baptist Hospital in
Gaza because this thing just didn't
happen and that thing also did not go
well because the Chinese neens actually
like figure out this is not true and
then they started to like debating him
in the commenting session and they
flooded the Israel embassy's official
commenting area on weor on the platform
and it's very quite interesting
that Israel the so-called only democracy
of the middest somehow just like don't
allow people to talk on internet they
seal off the commenting session the
Israelis have been doing that constantly
they also have connected with other
embassies especially American and German
embassies in Beijing they asked the
German Embassy to publish a statement
saying that anyone comparing Israel
policy to that of Nazi Germany is like
they use the word like either ignorant
idiots or like malicious bastards those
are like in quote of diplomatic
statement made and publicized by the
official German Embassy which is
shocking and in the in the sense of
protocol but yeah so they have been
trying to do that thing as well but all
of those thing actually like failed it's
very clearly if you get into the
internet platform of China for example
wo or any other platform you would find
that it's always overwhelmingly that
people Pro pistan and the commenting
session of the Israeli Embassy or
consulate or related let's say the
German and the American embassies
commenting area it's all like either
flooded with criticism or they just
close the commenting area which later
become the norm they just don't allow
anyone to talk about them because they
know that everyone is criticizing them
and one
most interesting thing is that in in the
Chinese internet in current situation
they use this very poetic language to
refer to the palanan fighters and they
refer to the fighters as dandelion the
flower
dandelion and the idea is like the
comparison is saying that oh like
dandelion is a plant that uh flies in
the wind right like looks similar to
parachut forces or things like that and
another thing is like arguing that
dandelion is a plant that flies
everywhere and whenever it lend it just
survives and grows into another Denton
and things like that so they use that to
compare to the resilience of the
Palestinian people saying that they
whenever they broke out of the open
prison of Gaza and they come back to
their Homeland they will survive there
they will like managed to find their
roots in their Homeland that poetic
portrait of the Palestinian people and
even the Palestinian Army struggle is
quite interesting it's exactly the
opposite of what the Israelis want and
uh you would see that the more
activities Israel Embassy trying to do
in China is going to like actually serve
as the counter Force stimulating those
Chinese people's spontan I glorification
of the Palestinian struggle and this
Dynamic is probably going to continue
for a very long time if you look at the
artistic portray of pistan in China in
recent years you be really amazed and
then the overall social atmosphere in
China
is just not the same with with the West
right supporting pistan is still the
political correctness you know during M
period China was the first non-arab
Global power that provided full
recognization of the
P so China was like in one of the
vanguards in that period but in the last
40 years it has made lot of uh regress
backward but still like even considering
that you would find that in the Chinese
Society still supporting pistan is still
part of the political correctness of
China still part of the Chinese
mainstream society's consensus
and this consensus is getting
Consolidated in the recent like in the
last one year because of the genocide in
Gaza and then the young people are
forming a even stronger prop Palestine
sentiment and to creating more works on
that following the genocide Eng G
How this was made
Auto-dubbed
Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more
Transcript
in the Chinese internet they use this
very poetic language to refer to the
palanan fighters and they refer to the
fighters as dandelion the flower
dandelion so the Israeli Embassy in
China has been very busy following
October 7th until basically today and
after the October 7th they're trying to
force the Chinese government condemn the
attack which the Chinese government
refused and so they turned to the public
they started to publish their own
diplomatic statement on Chinese social
media as you know like China has its own
social media system so we don't use
Twitter we use this one important
platform called way boy basically
Chinese version of Twitter and is really
their Embassy and consulate each of them
have one account one official account on
this platform so they started to spread
lot of uh public criticism to the
Chinese official diplomatic stance which
is very rare in China's diplomatic
protocol experience because you know
it's a totally China controlled platform
normally foreign embassies they just
tweet something like for protocol for
like ritual type of thing like say happy
new year or something like that on those
social media they don't publicize their
disagreement or dispute with a Chinese
government but Israel are doing that
they started to spread misinformation
trying to kidnap the the Chinese public
opinion on the Israeli site the most
important case is one of the hostages
who was held in Gaza name is Noah
agamani she's her mother is Chinese and
she's isra citizen while the Israeli
Embassy was claiming that she's Chinese
National and this is just not a correct
information this is a false information
and the Israelis probably know this from
the beginning but they don't care and
then all of those official account of
the Israeli Embassy have been
emphasizing that oh we have a Chinese
National being kidnapped in Gaza and
Chinese government should come out and
do things and some of the Chinese nans
just get cheated by this misinformation
and believe that and started to like
saying a lot of things like asking the
government to either condemn the attack
or like try to collaborate with Israelis
and um the one most interesting post
made by the Israelis is like they by the
Israeli official Embassy is like they
like portray Netanyahu as some sort of
uh philanthropist gentleman that he his
heart was broken after he saw this news
of the kidnap so that he reached out the
Chinese and asking like pleading the
Chinese to help without diplomatic uh
Norms like just because this thing is so
important it's a common
National of both China and Israel that's
the rhetoric that they used in the
propaganda and this thing became so
important that the Chinese official
spokesman of the foreign Ministry has to
answer to this question in q&as and the
Chinese official media interviewed the
mother of the hostage and this thing
later ended very badly because the
mother of the hostage was basically
telling the camera says yes I'm Israeli
and you Chinese have to help me it's
your responsibility we don't care and
that thing is just like making the
Nationalist sentiment of her supporters
like fading away right because they
support this thing because they thought
oh it's a national of China and then
later they found out that's not the case
and probably they are not sharing the
same nationalist sentiment so this thing
ended quite badly and also another type
of spreading misinformation is spread
misinformation about what is happening
in Gaza you know like the Israel Embassy
as they have been doing in every single
Western countries they have a lot of
programs to build connections with
Scholars with intellectuals with media
and things like that and during the war
in Gaza they were able to basically get
one state Affiliated very high level
Chinese scholar like some type of
authority type of figure to speak in
favor of them said
that everything from Gaza is just fake
news and he used the words that zero
person has died in the Israeli
bombardment of the Baptist Hospital in
Gaza because this thing just didn't
happen and that thing also did not go
well because the Chinese neens actually
like figure out this is not true and
then they started to like debating him
in the commenting session and they
flooded the Israel embassy's official
commenting area on weor on the platform
and it's very quite interesting
that Israel the so-called only democracy
of the middest somehow just like don't
allow people to talk on internet they
seal off the commenting session the
Israelis have been doing that constantly
they also have connected with other
embassies especially American and German
embassies in Beijing they asked the
German Embassy to publish a statement
saying that anyone comparing Israel
policy to that of Nazi Germany is like
they use the word like either ignorant
idiots or like malicious bastards those
are like in quote of diplomatic
statement made and publicized by the
official German Embassy which is
shocking and in the in the sense of
protocol but yeah so they have been
trying to do that thing as well but all
of those thing actually like failed it's
very clearly if you get into the
internet platform of China for example
wo or any other platform you would find
that it's always overwhelmingly that
people Pro pistan and the commenting
session of the Israeli Embassy or
consulate or related let's say the
German and the American embassies
commenting area it's all like either
flooded with criticism or they just
close the commenting area which later
become the norm they just don't allow
anyone to talk about them because they
know that everyone is criticizing them
and one
most interesting thing is that in in the
Chinese internet in current situation
they use this very poetic language to
refer to the palanan fighters and they
refer to the fighters as dandelion the
flower
dandelion and the idea is like the
comparison is saying that oh like
dandelion is a plant that uh flies in
the wind right like looks similar to
parachut forces or things like that and
another thing is like arguing that
dandelion is a plant that flies
everywhere and whenever it lend it just
survives and grows into another Denton
and things like that so they use that to
compare to the resilience of the
Palestinian people saying that they
whenever they broke out of the open
prison of Gaza and they come back to
their Homeland they will survive there
they will like managed to find their
roots in their Homeland that poetic
portrait of the Palestinian people and
even the Palestinian Army struggle is
quite interesting it's exactly the
opposite of what the Israelis want and
uh you would see that the more
activities Israel Embassy trying to do
in China is going to like actually serve
as the counter Force stimulating those
Chinese people's spontan I glorification
of the Palestinian struggle and this
Dynamic is probably going to continue
for a very long time if you look at the
artistic portray of pistan in China in
recent years you be really amazed and
then the overall social atmosphere in
China
is just not the same with with the West
right supporting pistan is still the
political correctness you know during M
period China was the first non-arab
Global power that provided full
recognization of the
P so China was like in one of the
vanguards in that period but in the last
40 years it has made lot of uh regress
backward but still like even considering
that you would find that in the Chinese
Society still supporting pistan is still
part of the political correctness of
China still part of the Chinese
mainstream society's consensus
and this consensus is getting
Consolidated in the recent like in the
last one year because of the genocide in
Gaza and then the young people are
forming a even stronger prop Palestine
sentiment and to creating more works on
that following the genocide Eng G
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