By Elishya Perera
AUCKLAND (CWBN)_ New Zealand has joined Australia in criticising the highly distressing fake war crime photo shared on social media by a senior government official of China.
Earlier today (Dec 1), Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand has raised its concerns directly with authorities in Beijing.
“This is an image that wasn’t factual. It wasn’t correct. And so, in keeping with our principled position where images like that are used, we will raise those concerns and we’ll do it directly,” she said.
However, Ardern’s criticism was more restrained in comparison to that of Australia’s, since she was placed in an awkward position in deciding how far New Zealand was willing to get involved in the conflict between the country’s closest ally, Australia, and its biggest trading partner, China.
Australian Prime Minister Scoot Morrison called the image “repugnant”, and demanded an apology from Beijing for sharing the “deplorable” and “terribly offensive” fake photo on social media.
Nevertheless, China has not backed down from the tweet and said there will be no apology.
A fake image of what appears to be an Australian soldier slitting a child’s throat was tweeted by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, yesterday (Nov 30), with a caption that read, “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts and call for holding them accountable.”
Lijian was referring to the report released by Australian Defence Forces’ Gen. Angus John Campbell, earlier this month, stating there was credible information that Australian Special Forces unlawfully killed 39 Afghan civilians, between 2005 and 2016.
The Prime Minister also called on Twitter to take down the image, calling it “an outrageous and disgusting slur” adding that “in the interests of decency” it should be taken down.
The Australian government has contacted Twitter asking it to take the post down, and although it had a warning tag on it today, the post can still be viewed.
Despite the communist regime blocking Twitter and other US social media platforms within the county, Chinese diplomats and state media have established a strong presence on them.
Lijian, who is considered a leading representative of Beijing’s new approach of assertive foreign relations, was criticized by the US in March after tweeting a conspiracy theory that American soldiers may have brought the coronavirus to China.
The recent tweet by the Foreign Ministry spokesperson added fuel to the growing dispute between China and Australia, following sanctions imposed by Beijing on a rather lengthy list of imports from Canberra.
Edited by Chathushka Perera
