China finds a use abroad for Twitter, a medium it fears at home

AS THE CRISIS deepened over the outbreak of covid-19, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, convened a meeting of the country’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee. One topic the seven men discussed on February 3rd was how to manage publicity. Officials, they agreed, must “tell the story of China’s fight against the epidemic, and show the Chinese people’s spirit of unity and togetherness”. In response, Chinese diplomats have been turning to a medium that most of them eschewed until just a year ago: Twitter. Blocked in China, it is fast becoming a favoured tool for the Communist Party as it tries to amplify its voice globally.

Two academics who study the Chinese foreign ministry’s use of social media, Zhao Alexandre Huang and Rui Wang, found only 17 Chinese diplomatic Twitter accounts in October 2018. Now they count more than 80. They are being used to promote the heroic work of China’s doctors and nurses and relay messages of support from Western leaders. “No winter lasts forever, every spring is sure to follow,” said China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, on February 14th in her first ever tweet. They also go on the offensive. “You speak in such a way that you look like part of the virus and you will be eradicated just like virus. Shame on you,” said Zha Liyou, China’s consul-general in Kolkata, India, in a tweet on February 16th aimed at a critic of China’s handling of the outbreak.