Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state media is open in its contempt of a recent New York Times piece suggesting a “pro-Ukrainian group” blew up the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. The CCP’s Global Times scoffed that the United States is trying to avoid admitting its responsibility for the action and even suggested the U.S. is trying to obstruct investigations into the sabotage.
Every once in a while, CCP state media might have a point, even if it’s saying the right thing for all the wrong reasons.
Of course, the CCP is very hypocritical. China constantly commits technological and economic sabotage or theft on other countries, including the United States. Former Trump advisor Anthony Shaffer said at CPAC 2023 that the CCP uses the money it generates economically to wage “fifth-generation warfare” against the U.S. But those realities don’t stop the CCP from self-righteously calling out the Biden administration.
Blowing up Nord Stream can only be an action carried out by a national-level force. Now Washington seems to make a fool of the world by using an obscure, pro-Ukrainian group to absolve itself: Global Times Commentator Hu Xijin #HuSays pic.twitter.com/oMBm7vRaQR
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 8, 2023
Propagandist Hu Xijin has previously called for shooting down U.S. planes over Taiwan. Now, in a March 8 video called “Hu Says” that was published by Global Times, Hu cited the March 7 New York Times article, “Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say.” Hu mocked the Times’s characterization: “It sounds like several Russia-hating people who have no ties to national force conducted this shocking blast. No one will probably believe this nonsense.”
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Hu went on to cite American journalist Seymour Hersh’s February report arguing that Nord Stream was blown up by the U.S. at Joe Biden’s command. “This is the most convincing investigative report regarding the issue so far,” Hu enthused. He gave his — and Global Times’s —opinion: “Blowing up Nord Stream cannot be a terrorist organization-level operation. Given the complexity of the action, it can only be an action carried out by a national-level force, and it is not something that a small country can do.”
Hu briefly mentioned the early rumor that the U.K. had blown up Nord Stream at the bequest of the U.S. but seemed to find the evidence uncompelling. “There is a lack of basic openness and transparency in the investigation of Nord Stream incident,” Hu said. He insisted that the U.S. is obstructing an international investigation, arguing that the Baltic states and Germany (particularly the latter, which was significantly affected by the sabotage) would not be “silent” about Nord Stream unless the U.S. were exerting pressure.
”It is abnormal completely,” Hu characterized the German and Baltic silence. “Only the U.S. has the ability to obstruct an open and a serious probe. Now Washington seems to make a fool of the world by using an obscure, ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ to absolve itself.”
China has steadily supported Russia throughout the latter’s destructive invasion of Ukraine and America is China’s biggest enemy, so CCP state media is not exactly objective (although neither is the Biden administration). Fox News’s China expert, Gordon Chang, is even predicting the U.S. and China will be at war soon. But regardless of speculations and mysteries, one thing is very clear: CCP state propaganda openly blames the United States for the Nord Stream sabotage.