China and Human Rights: Beijing’s Real Face Fails to Hide as Gifts of Water and Cyberattacks Compete - [Opinion]

China repays states for co-alignment variously. Its “no limits” partnership with Moscow was this week bolstered by Beijing’s propaganda outlet Global Times serving Russia’s narrative that the recent terrorist attack in its capital city may be connected to the United States of America and Ukraine, against the latter of which it is attempting to justify a war of invasion.

Making no reference to obvious use of torture, the Global Times’ English-language service tweeted that the Russia’s “investigation and interrogation” of terrorism suspects reveals a “complicated” situation and implied possible involvement from Washington and Kyiv.

Beijing also sought to keep the Maldives, one of its more recent allies, happy with the March delivery of one million bottles of glacial meltwater from colonially occupied Tibet. For years, civil society organizations have highlighted how Tibetan pastoralists are being removed from their traditional lands to facilitate resource exploitation by Chinese companies, including for bottled water.

Extraction of water is reportedly exacerbating environmental degradation and conflict in tandem with a flurry of dam construction that saw major protests earlier this year in Dege County, currently part of China’s Sichuan province. The hundreds of protesters arrested during that incident have been released, but not before suffering deprivation of water, overcrowding and sometimes severe beatings in custody. Moreover, the wider picture suggests that not all of the detainees have been set free; some remain unaccounted for; several younger monks have been sent to government schools since the demonstrations; and restrictions on movement in Dege are still in place.

Meanwhile, far from gifts of water, other countries that are not regarded on quite such friendly terms by Beijing like New Zealand, the U.S., U.K. and members of the European Union have instead been the victims of widespread cyber-attacks. Attributed to two entities known as APT 31 and APT 40, which are considered to be affiliated with the Chinese state, the attacks focused on targets such as the British Electoral Commission, companies of strategic importance, dissidents, journalists, parliamentarians and other politicians critical of China.