Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis's decision to fly roughly 50 illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, marks "a new low in politics," according to a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece that has denied China's ongoing genocide against Uyghur Muslims.
Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times on Sunday published an editorial with the headline, "Political stunts on migrants show new low in politics." The piece went on to assail DeSantis and Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott's decisions to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities, arguing that "all migrants who step on the American soil" are being "trampled under the feet of U.S. politicians." The propaganda rag's assessment notably excluded China's genocide against its ethnic Uyghur minority, which has seen the communist nation detain more than one million Muslims in state-sponsored internment camps, where captives are subject to forced labor and sterilization.
This is far from the first time China's government has weaponized woke rhetoric in the United States to shift attention from its human rights atrocities. In May 2020, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman pushed back on U.S. criticism over its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong by tweeting, "I can't breathe," a reference to George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, which occurred just days prior. Roughly one year later, in March 2021, China pledged to submit a "report on human-rights violations in the United States" focused on the Black Lives Matter movement. The announcement came as the communist nation faced international criticism over its Uyghur genocide.
Global Times's Sunday report also elevates Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), who, according to the piece, "accused the Republican politicians of committing crimes against humanity." Fellow Chinese Communist Party-controlled propaganda outlet Xinhua News Agency also trumpeted a quote from the "Squad" member in June to call "the rate of school shootings in the United States" a "mark of global shame." State-controlled Global Times, meanwhile, used a May interview with liberal activist Ryan Deitsch to declare the United States a "white supremacist country."
Biden administration officials have also taken to China's state-controlled propaganda networks to emphasize social justice unrest in America. Environmental Protection Agency deputy assistant administrator Carlton Waterhouse last year told China's CGTN that he "absolutely" supports defunding police, saying "In all honesty, if you think about all of our major police forces, we have spent all of our money on a possible cure rather than putting it into education, health, and social services."
DeSantis last week chartered two flights carrying a small group of illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard. The migrants left the wealthy liberal island shortly after they arrived—on Friday morning, the National Guard escorted the group to a nearby military base on Cape Cod. Some residents argued that the island did not have the resources to take care of the roughly 50 illegal immigrants, prompting criticism from DeSantis. Immigration authorities are logging roughly 8,000 migrant encounters a day, the highest daily number in U.S. history, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week.
"The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they all of a sudden go berserk," DeSantis said Friday. "It just shows you, you know, their virtue signaling is a fraud."