{"id":52638,"date":"2020-12-03T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T18:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=164934"},"modified":"2020-12-03T02:54:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T18:54:00","slug":"scott-morrison-post-on-chinese-social-media-site-wechat-blocked-amid-china-australia-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2020\/12\/03\/scott-morrison-post-on-chinese-social-media-site-wechat-blocked-amid-china-australia-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Morrison post on Chinese social media site WeChat blocked amid China-Australia row"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Watch: The Prime Minister waded into the argument on Tuesday and now China's Foreign Ministry is accusing New Zealand of siding with Australia. Credits: Video - Newshub; Image - Getty
\nThe Chinese social media platform WeChat has blocked a message by Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison amid a dispute between Canberra and Beijing over a doctored image of an Australian soldier.
\nChina rebuffed Morrison's calls for an apology after its foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted the picture of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child on Monday.
\nThe United States called China's use of the digitally manipulated image a \"new low\" in disinformation.
\nMorrison took to WeChat on Tuesday to criticise the \"false image\", while offering praise to Australia's Chinese community.
\nIn his message, Morrison defended Australia's handling of a war crimes investigation into the actions of special forces in Afghanistan, and said Australia would deal with \"thorny issues\" in a transparent manner.
\nRelated News
\nChina hits back over Australian image 'concern': 'Does this have anything to do with New Zealand?'
\n'Kiwis bleat like Aussie sheep': Chinese state media bites at NZ amid Twitter picture furore But that message appeared to be blocked by Wednesday evening, with a note appearing from the 'Weixin Official Accounts Platform Operation Center' saying the content was unable to be viewed because it violated regulations, including distorting historical events and confusing the public.
\nTencent, the parent company of WeChat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nAustralian special forces allegedly killed 39 unarmed prisoners and civilians in Afghanistan, with senior commandos reportedly forcing junior soldiers to kill defenceless captives in order to \"blood\" them for combat, a four-year investigation found.
\nAustralia said last week that 19 current and former soldiers would be referred for potential criminal prosecution.
\nChina's embassy has said the \"rage and roar\" from Australian politicians and media over the soldier image was an overreaction.
\n'Hypocrisy is obvious to all' Australia was seeking to \"deflect public attention from the horrible atrocities by certain Australian soldiers\", it said.
\nOther nations, including the United States, New Zealand and France - and the self-ruled island of Taiwan which China claims as its own - have expressed concern at the Chinese foreign ministry's use of the manipulated image on an official Twitter account.
\n\"The CCP's latest attack on Australia is another example of its unchecked use of disinformation and coercive diplomacy. Its hypocrisy is obvious to all,\" the US State Department said on Wednesday, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
\nState Department deputy spokesman Cale Brown said the fabricated image of the soldier was \"a new low, even for the Chinese Communist Party\".
\n\"As the CCP spreads disinformation, it covers up its horrendous human rights abuses, including the detention of more than a million Muslims in Xinjiang,\" Brown wrote in a tweet.
\nFrance's foreign affairs spokesman said on Tuesday the tweeted image was \"especially shocking\" and the comments by Zhao \"insulting for all countries whose armed forces are currently engaged in Afghanistan\".
\nChina's embassy in Paris hit back on Wednesday, saying the soldier image was a caricature by a painter, adding that France has previously loudly defended the right to caricature.
\nWeChat has 690,000 active daily users in Australia, and in September told an Australian government inquiry it would prevent foreign interference in Australian public debate through its platform.
\nMorrison's message had been read by 57,000 WeChat users by Wednesday.
\nZhao's tweet, pinned to the top of his Twitter account, had been \"liked\" by 60,000 followers, after Twitter labelled it as sensitive content but declined Canberra's request to remove the image.
\nTwitter is blocked in China, but has been used by Chinese diplomats.
\nChina on Friday imposed dumping tariffs of up to 200 percent on Australian wine imports, effectively shutting off the largest export market for the Australian wine industry.
\nA group of Parliamentarians from 19 countries that has lobbied against China's actions in Hong Kong, where it has cracked down on dissent, and in the farwestern region of Xinjiang campaigned on social media for the public to drink Australian wine.
\nReuters<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch: The Prime Minister waded into the argument on Tuesday and now China's Foreign Ministry is accusing New Zealand of siding with Australia. Credits: Video – Newshub; Image – Getty
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