Chinese social media erupts in war of words as Palestine crisis divides opinion
As with the war in Europe, a sense of victimhood as well as national pride was driving support for the Palestinian cause among Chinese net users, apart from personal political leanings, analysts said.
“Some of us should not be influenced by public opinion dominated by Jews and Americans,” Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, posted on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site akin to X, formerly Twitter.
Hu has been among the most vocal high-profile commentators on the conflict since Hamas’ surprise cross-border assault at daybreak on Saturday sparked a massive Israeli counteroffensive on Gaza, controlled by the Palestinian militant group.
“It is true that Israeli civilians are dying pitifully. But is it not true that Palestinians who are cut off from water and electricity, bombed and attacked are also pitiful?” Hu wrote in an earlier post on Weibo, where he has more than 24 million followers.
Shen Yi, a highly influential nationalistic voice and a professor of international politics at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, has also weighed in on the matter, blaming the Western-led global order as the root cause of the conflict.
“At its core, resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is about addressing the negative legacy of the old international order,” Shen, who has more than 2 million followers, wrote in a Weibo post.
The Israel-Palestine issue and the situation in the Middle East “are essentially the results of the international order led by Western countries, from Britain to the US, starting from the 19th century or even earlier and continuing to shape it to this day,” he wrote.
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Similar sentiments were expressed in comments on posts by Chinese state media. On Tuesday, web users cited a video report from state broadcaster CCTV to highlight “the Israel factor” in US elections, referencing the country’s influence over American politics.
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Nationalistic comments were also left below Weibo posts from the US embassy in Beijing as it updated followers on Washington’s response to the situation in the Middle East.
In contrast with Washington, which has condemned the Hamas attack and vowed steadfast support for Israel, the Chinese official narrative has been vague.
Beijing’s initial response called for de-escalation and the protection of civilians but did not mention the militant group by name, drawing criticism from both the US and Israel. In subsequent comments, the Chinese foreign ministry said China was “deeply saddened by the civilian casualties” and condemned “any acts that harm civilians”.
The clip sparked a massive online row, with many voicing sympathy while nationalist posters accused Israel of exploiting her Chinese descent to “impose its morality on the Chinese people”.
The escalating shouting match led to the embassy’s Weibo account being briefly blocked on Monday morning.
Since then, only pro-Israel comments have been allowed to appear below its posts, which nationalist Weibo users have picked up to repost and ridicule.
However, some commentators have adopted a different tone.
“One should not whitewash violence and terrorism”, regardless of one’s opinion on the current crisis, Beijing-based international relations scholar Chu Yin posted.
And fiction and essay writer Long Dong hinted at support for Israel with a post saying: “It is important to take the position of the majority of civilised and developed countries [on the conflict]”.
Wendy Zhou, a doctoral researcher in Communication and China Studies at Georgia State University, said the combative exchanges among nationalists might reflect a variety of motivations.
These could include an intent to “guide international relations towards a preferred outcome, express a sense of cynicism over the limited prospects of changing the current state of affairs, or simply serve as a tactic to garner public attention”.
“The interplay between national pride and a victim identity often amplifies Chinese nationalist sentiments, especially during international or regional crises,” Zhou, who researches political discourse, said.
The sympathy for Palestine on social media may be rooted in “China’s own painful history of being a target of imperial aggression”.
Lin Yao, assistant professor of Practice in Political Science at New York University Shanghai, said the polarised public opinion on the Israel-Hamas conflict reflected China’s own social realities, as web users and intellectuals “who favour nationalism tend to follow the state’s stance”.
“Because Israel is more pro-American, China’s stance will now be more distant from Israel,” Lin said.
“For Chinese liberals, it is like a knee-jerk reaction. When they see that the Chinese government seems to be on the side of the Palestinians, then they must voice support for Israel,” he added.
“Some Chinese liberals have a fantasy of Israel as an ‘island of civilisation’ in the Middle East.”
Lin said the discussion on the Chinese internet resembled recent ones on the Ukraine war, where “many people will simply choose sides, reflecting their own different imaginations” of the outside world.
Rana Mitter, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, said China’s official narratives on the most recent conflict would remain “low profile” – unaffected by the online discourse.
“Although Chinese social media voices have made the Israel-Hamas war part of a wider anti-American discourse, in practice the Chinese government is unlikely to respond to these voices as it does not reflect any geopolitical interest to do so.”