China’s political agenda behind deliberately expelling Wall Street Journal reporters out of a molehill

Political intentions and the appearance of political events are often contradictory to each other. It can even be said that the appearance of political events is more appropriately described as an illusion. For professional politicians, political appearance has become a kind of currency, which uses a special representational language to convey meanings that ordinary people cannot understand. In other words, its purpose is to bypass the political judgment of ordinary people and achieve a tacit understanding of communication between professional politicians.

China recently deliberately made a fuss out of a molehill and expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters in China, and this political decision also contains hidden political intentions.

Judging from its appearance, the "deportation incident" seems to be a protest against the "Sick Man of Asia" term used by the Wall Street Journal. However, this move is obviously excessive and does not allow the other party to explain it (for example, differences in cultural context). Beijing deliberately expels reporters in an unreasonable way and deliberately ignores the fact that the newspaper’s commentary department and news gathering and editing department fully perform their respective duties. , brought this issue to the forefront, and used it to raise a number of demands that clearly infringed on the freedom of speech rights of the American news media (and took advantage of China's political influence on all walks of life in the United States to put pressure on the newspaper). There is a kind of political operation hidden behind this deliberate fuss. Since it involves political operation, its political intention is not just as simple as taking the opportunity to retaliate, put pressure or even force the other party to surrender.

Analyzing its political intentions, it cannot be ruled out that Beijing attempts to use this to achieve the following political goals in one fell swoop:

First, it provokes continued tension between the Wall Street consortium and the White House, and even infighting. The abnormality in the US stock market before and after the "deportation incident" is likely to be directly or covertly related to this (on the surface it seems to be caused by the impact of the plague). In this regard, Beijing may intend to contain the White House and put pressure on the implementation of the preliminary trade war agreement (although Beijing still insists on its verbal commitment to fulfill its trade agreement commitments), but it also does not rule out the possibility of containing the US government's investigation into the truth about the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak. political considerations.

Second, by portraying foreign enemies internally, it continues to deepen the impression that the United States stands by, takes advantage of the situation, makes irresponsible remarks, and fakes freedom of speech and democracy, intensifying public opinion. This political intention may completely include the following purposes: monitoring the scope of government influence and the direction of public opinion (this can be done through big data analysis through the public opinion review mechanism and the channels deliberately opened by the official, to predict or prevent the points where social movements may break out) and signs), and secondly, it attempts to use this to cover up and cover up the responsibility for the Chinese government's negligence in causing the outbreak of the plague and its inability to fight against the disease. However, the response of the Chinese public is obviously not as strong as official estimates, and social focus is still focused on the pneumonia and resumption of work. But one thing that cannot be ignored is that the Beijing authorities are likely to take the initiative to stimulate and intensify the intensity of a new round or even several waves of diplomatic friction based on public opinion monitoring data, in order to incite diplomatic conflicts to cover up and cover up the problems caused by pneumonia and the resumption of work. Panic and the possible demands for government accountability behind it.

Third, the Beijing authorities may not be sure whether the Western intelligence system has grasped the truth about the pneumonia outbreak and related insider information (and are extremely worried about the truth being leaked). By making a fuss out of molehills and deliberately creating diplomatic conflicts, the Beijing authorities intend to stimulate political advisers in Western countries to accuse them. Deductions based on political intentions - it is inevitable to reach this point, that is to say: if the intelligence systems of Western countries dare to expose the truth that the Beijing authorities have deliberately concealed, the Chinese side will use this method to warn them: The Chinese government has every solution. Use various means to counter the information leaked from Western intelligence systems. It is precisely based on the determination of this political intention that the United States has recently deliberately allowed the intelligence system to leak out the great escape plan that the Beijing authorities have prepared. This move is intended to hint to the Beijing authorities that the United States does not yet have the truth about the pneumonia outbreak and other high-level secrets that Beijing authorities are worried about. Because this is not the first time that the Beijing authorities have planned an escape in a crisis, nor is it the last time (the Beijing authorities had planned emergency evacuation plans on the eve of the Soviet Union’s nuclear bomb attack crisis and the June 4th student uprising crisis). Such leaks will have a serious impact on Beijing. Far less severe than the impact of the exposure of the truth about pneumonia - if the United States intends to make such a signal, on the contrary, its intention is to continue to deepen Beijing's worries (but in Beijing's view, it is a smiley threat): because this move also shows that the United States It is very likely that the White House has accurately grasped the truth about the pneumonia outbreak, but this time it can hold back and tell Beijing only through the political code: The White House may not cheat on you for the time being, but the premise is to see how you perform. But in this regard, the possibility that both parties will misjudge each other or even guess the wrong cards has increased sharply.

Fourth, it will alienate Chinese people’s trust in foreign media in advance, thereby weakening the credibility of foreign governments that may disclose the truth about the plague (only for Chinese nationals). As long as the public regards such remarks as the United States and Western governments deliberately causing trouble and groundlessly slandering and smearing China, a considerable number of Chinese people will not take to the streets because they know the truth. And once people take to the streets for this reason, they will be suppressed by anti-American people (see the practice of provoking the masses to fight against the masses during the anti-extradition bill in Hong Kong). In terms of political intentions alone, this move (including various external conflicts that may continue to ferment in the future) is intended to strengthen the confidence of the majority of people who support the Communist Party and prevent the ineffectiveness of its governance from becoming apparent, exacerbating the loss of public opinion, and causing the regime to lose its footing. danger.