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The Great Translation Movement: Exposing Chinese Propaganda to the World

by Trevor Gentry-Birnbaum

“The Great Translation Movement” is an anonymous Twitter account  translating what China’s social media users post about current events so that non-Chinese speakers can grasp the effect of government messaging.  TGTM shows citizens calling for missile strikes against Kyiv, sympathy for “Putin the god of justice,” and the majority of mainlanders believing COVID-19 was deliberately created by the United States. These are not fringe opinions; they are widespread and encouraged by the government. The Great Translation Movement was launched in March and already has more than 137,000 followers.

 

Most of the developed world stands Ukraine and even offers support in the face of Russian hostility; In China, social media users have been calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a Nazi and idolizing Vladimir Putin.

 

 

Since the majority of people outside China are unable to read the language, The Great Translation Movement translations are exposing the image-making of the Chinese Communist Party to the world. 

 

 

The anonymous crowd-sourced Twitter account takes screenshots from social media like Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) and Douyin (Chinese TikTok) and superimposes translations in numerous languages. The desired effect is to show other countries the type of government-sourced information the populace has to contend with and how it affects their worldview.

 

In a tweet on COVID-19, the account translated Weibo posts stating that the United States was directly responsible for the pandemic, which is the official position of the CCP.

“This is the real view of the Chinese on Weibo, with the highest likes reaching 76k. Almost everyone believes that COVID19 was deliberately created by the United States.”
TGTM is mostly focused on the war in Ukraine (the account’s user image incorporates the colors of the Ukrainian flag). The CCP has a vested interest in portraying the invasion as just since it heavily mirrors their own desire to reintegrate Taiwan into China. Also, China and Russia have allied themselves against the West, so portraying the actions of Putin as a necessary response to Western overreach is to their benefit. 

 

The movement has faced accusations of being part of a “cognitive war” launched against China by Western forces. This is a common tactic of the CCP used to silence any critical voices. But because the translators are specifically showing the actual posts of citizens, only the fiercest Chinese loyalists will accept such a defense. Some have suggested these translations will increase Asian discrimination worldwide, yet others have pointed out that the movement targets not the average internet user, but rather the machine that produces the propaganda.

 

The subject of this post was inspired by the Youtube channel, China Fact Chasers.