“Whoever introduces external forces to get involved is a complete traitor!”
“I understand the rally organised this time was by… the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of America.”
“Don’t be led astray by external forces. No matter what, you must love your country!”
These comments are far from unusual on the Chinese social media site Weibo.
A range of users – from those with a handful of followers (known as “fans” on the platform) to ones boasting millions of subscribers – have been repeating claims that “external forces” are responsible for the protests that have taken place across the country in recent days.
Rallies against China’s unusually strict zero-COVID measures spread to several cities over the weekend in the biggest show of opposition to the ruling Communist Party in decades.
The numbers of protesters have now dipped, likely in part because of low temperatures and a heavy police presence at key locations.
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While the Chinese authorities have not directly commented on these rallies, they have repeatedly warned that “foreign forces” are a threat to national security and have interfered in the Hong Kong democracy protests.
This warning has been repeated by figures associated with the Chinese Communist Party, such as Ren Yi, the grandson of a Communist Party leader, Ren Zhongyi.
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Image: Ren Yi supports the idea ‘foreign forces’ are involved in the protests
Ren Yi has almost two million fans on Weibo, where he writes under the username Chairman Rabbit.
In a recent post, he asks “what do overseas anti-China forces most want” from the protests and why did “foreign forces… come out to make a fuss and then withdraw”.
Popular TV pundit and commentator Yu Li, whose Weibo username is Sima Nan and boasts 3.16 million fans, jokes in one post that he wants to thank foreign forces for interfering in the protests.
He writes: “If the CIA or the National Endowment for Democracy has an office in Beijing, please tell me the address and contact information, and I plan to send them a gift.”
The idea that America’s Central Intelligence Agency has been involved in the protests appears in a number of posts from Weibo users.
In particular, a screenshot of a news article reporting that the CIA is looking to hire more Chinese speakers is being widely shared.
Another image being widely posted is a snapshot of the moment a BBC cameraman was detained by Chinese police while covering the protests.
According to officials, Ed Lawrence was arrested “for his own good” in case he caught COVID from the crowd. He was released after being beaten and held for several hours.
One of the users who posted a photo of Mr Lawrence called him a “little idiot” and commented “we must not allow external forces to intervene in our internal conflicts”.
Another Weibo user made an unfounded accusation against Mr Lawrence, claiming he was a “British agent who was caught pretending to be a BBC reporter”. The account provided no evidence to back up the claim.
The BBC confirmed Mr Lawrence was a staff member and was working as an “accredited journalist”.
Accusations of foreign forces meddling in the protests are also appearing on other social media sites.
Two Chinese Twitter users with a combined follower count of 53,400 posted what they claim is evidence that Westerners are using an encrypted messaging app to plan the protest.
Image: One of the posts, written in English, accused this Telegram group of ‘planning’ the protest in Shanghai
The message on Telegram provided a time, meeting place and instructions to bring a white piece of paper, a symbol borrowed by those protesting in China from the demonstrators in Hong Kong.
Sky News found the Telegram chat but the messages were not in it. They could have been deleted.
As this wave of jingoistic social media messages spread across Weibo and other platforms, signs of China’s notorious internet censorship rules could also be seen.
Posts mentioning Shanghai, a Chinese city which saw large protests, appear to have been deleted en masse from Weibo.
This screenshot shows a search for 上海 (Shanghai) brought up fewer than 1,000 results.
While this screenshot for 北京 (Beijing), a comparable city in terms of prominence and population, resulted in almost 40 million hits.
Weibo openly states on its platform that content is monitored and may be removed.
As well as posts being deleted, those looking for information on the protests must contend with swathes of spam messages flooding social media.
Benjamin Strick, investigations director of Centre for Information Resilience, has identified more than 3,000 posts on Twitter that include hashtags for some of the cities in China where protests are taking place.
He says these posts are being used to “spam the tags with dating ads”.
Many of the accounts were made recently and have zero or few followers. Some 2,000 of the tweets use the text “I’m single, can I get a husband on Twitter.”
“For journalists or researchers looking up what’s happening in China at specific locations. This is what they’re wading through,” Mr Strick tweeted.
It is not possible to know if the spam messages are burying protest posts by design or coincidence, nor can we measure how many posts are being taken down from sites like Weibo.
But there are some groups fighting back.
Greatfire.org is a China-based group challenging Chinese censorship. It runs sites such as freeweibo.com which captures posts before they are deleted from the official Weibo platform and publishes them so they remain visible online.
Searching for terms like “protest” or “white paper” bring up a large number of banned comments. A link to the deleted post (which now displays as an error message) on Weibo is also provided.
Despite the levels of censorship facing Chinese citizens, protesters have been finding a way to get information out into the world, such as this video showing a man being dragged into a police car.
One of the co-founders of Greatfire.org, Charlie Smith (not his real name), told Sky News the events over the last week shows the censors are “fallible”.
He said: “These protests really highlight how the online censorship apparatus in China is fallible… [and] what has happened over the weekend shows that many Chinese are well aware of what is happening in the country.
“Yes, there is widespread censorship on social media in China, but this weekend’s protests illustrate that history cannot be erased.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
No deal has been reached to end the war in Ukraine – but Donald Trump has said there are “many points” he and Vladimir Putin agreed on during their highly anticipated summit.
Following the meeting in Alaska, which lasted more than two-and-a-half hours, the two leaders gave a short media conference giving little detail about what had been discussed, and without taking questions.
Mr Trump described the meeting as “very productive” and said there were “many points that we agreed on… I would say a couple of big ones”.
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2:20
Key moments from Trump-Putin news conference
But there are a few left, he added. “Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there…
“We haven’t quite got there, we’ve made some headway. There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
Mr Putin described the negotiations as “thorough and constructive” and said Russiawas “seriously interested in putting an end” to the war in Ukraine. He also warned Europe not to “torpedo nascent progress”.
Image: Donald Trump greets Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Pic: AP/ Julia Demaree Nikhinson
After much build-up to the summit – with the US president threatening “severe” consequences for Russia should it not go well – it was ultimately not clear whether the talks had produced meaningful steps towards a ceasefire in what has been the deadliest conflict in Europe in 80 years.
Mr Trump said he intended to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders, who were excluded from the discussions, to brief them.
Despite not reaching any major breakthrough, the US leader ended his remarks with a thank you, and said he would probably see Mr Putin again “very soon”.
When the Russian president suggested that “next time” would be Moscow, he responded by saying he might face criticism, but “I could see it possibly happening”.
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2:10
Trump applauds Putin and shares ride in ‘The Beast’
The red carpet treatment
The news conference came after a grand arrival at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, where the US president stepped down from Air Force One and later greeted his Russian counterpart with a handshake and smiles on a red carpet.
Mr Putin even travelled alongside Mr Trump in the presidential limousine, nicknamed “The Beast”.
It was the kind of reception typically reserved for close US allies, belying the bloodshed and the suffering in the war.
Before the talks, the two presidents ignored frantically-shouted questions from journalists – and Mr Putin appeared to frown when asked by one reporter if he would stop “killing civilians” in Ukraine, putting his hand to his ear as though to indicate he could not hear.
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3:22
‘Fury, anger and disgust’ in Ukraine
Our US correspondent Martha Kelner, on the ground in Alaska, said he was shouting “let’s go” – apparently in reference to getting the reporters out of the room.
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3:02
What we learned from Trump-Putin news conference
A ’10/10′ meeting
During his first day back in the White House in January, Mr Trump had pledged confidently to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine.
But seven months later, after infamously berating Mr Zelenskyy during a meeting at the Oval Office in February, and then stanching the flow of some US military assistance to Kyiv, he still does not appear to have brought a pause to the conflict.
In an interview with Fox News before leaving Alaska, Mr Trump described the meeting with Mr Putin as “warm” and gave it a “10/10”, but declined to give details about what they discussed.
He also insisted that the onus going forward could be on Mr Zelenskyy “to get it done”, but said there would also be some involvement from European nations.
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7:06
Trump’s body language was ‘disappointed’
What happens next?
Mr Trump is expected to speak to Mr Zelenskyy, Sir Keir Starmer and European leaders about the talks.
A meeting of ambassadors from European countries has been scheduled for 8.30am UK time, EU presidency sources have told Sky News.
European heads of state and Mr Trump are also likely to have a virtual meeting later in the day.
Despite the US president’s efforts to bring about a ceasefire, Russian attacks on Ukraine have only intensified in the past few months.
A warm handshake, big smiles, and a red carpet – this was the welcome for Vladimir Putin as he touched down on US soil for critical negotiations on the war in Ukraine.
There had been much build-up to the summit in Anchorage, Alaska,not least from Donald Trump himself – with the US president having threatened “severe” consequences for Russiashould it not go well.
Image: Pic: AP/ Julia Demaree Nikhinson
But more than two-and-a-half hours of talks resulted in just a brief news conference with little detail given away – and ultimately, no talk of a ceasefire and no deal on Ukrainereached yet.
Here is what was expected from the meeting – based on information from the White House, Mr Trump and the Kremlin beforehand – and what happened on the night.
One-on-one turned into three-on-three
Image: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US secretary of state Marco Rubio also attended the talks. Pic: AP/ Julia Demaree Nikhinson
It was thought this would be a one-on-one meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin.
Instead, the US president was joined by US secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff, while the Russian leader was supported by his foreign affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
The change seemed to indicate the White House was perhaps taking a more guarded approach than during a 2018 meeting in Helsinki, where Mr Trump and Mr Putin met privately with interpreters. The US leader then shocked the world by siding with the Russian leader over US intelligence officials on whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Rolling out the red carpet
Image: Pic: AP/ Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Mr Putin was given the kind of reception typically reserved for close US allies, belying the bloodshed and the suffering in the war he started.
The two men greeted each other with a handshake and a smiling Mr Trump even applauded the Russian president as he approached him on the red carpet.
Our international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn, in Kyiv, gauged the Ukrainian reaction to the arrival – and said people were furious at the welcome extended by the Trump team.
Images of US soldiers on their knees, unfurling the red carpet at the steps of the Russian leader’s plane, went viral, he said, with social media “lit up with fury, anger, and disgust”.
He added: “There are different ways of welcoming a world leader to this type of event, and Trump has gone all out to give a huge welcome to Putin, which is sticking in the craw of Ukrainians.”
Any questions?
Image: Pic: Reuters/ Kevin Lamarque
Plenty. But no one was really given a chance to ask.
Ahead of the talks, cameras were allowed inside for just a minute – and while this was enough time for a few journalists to shout some questions, these were ignored by the two leaders.
“President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?” one shouted. In response, Mr Putin put his hand up to his ear as if he could not hear.
In their brief media conference after the talks, Mr Putin spoke for almost nine minutes, while Trump took just three-and-a-half to say what he wanted to say.
The two men then did not stay to answer questions from reporters.
Before the event, the Kremlin said it could last between six and seven hours, but the whole visit lasted about four-and-a-half hours.
‘Severe consequences’
Image: Pic: AP/ Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Ever since his inauguration in January, Mr Trump had been threatening serious consequences for Russia should a deal on Ukraine not be reached soon. Just two days after the ceremony, he took to social media to declare there could be “high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions” and called for an end to the “ridiculous” war.
In February, he held what he described as a “productive” call with the Russian leader, and about two weeks later he infamously berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to the Oval Office – this one taking place in front of the world’s media.
In July, he started to set deadlines for an end to the war – first giving Mr Putin 50 days and later reducing this to “10 or 12 days”, before announcing the summit last week.
Yesterday, Mr Trump insisted his Russian counterpart was “not going to mess around with me”.
However, while both men insisted the talks were “productive”, it is not clear what agreements have been reached, and whether Ukraine is any closer to finding peace. The word ceasefire was not mentioned by either leader. Instead, they praised each other, with Mr Trump describing Mr Putin’s remarks as “very profound” – and there was no mention of sanctions.
A meeting with Mr Zelenskyy?
Image: Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy met at the White House in February. Pic: Reuters/ Brian Snyder
It was expected that after the talks, Mr Trump could set the table for the next meeting with the Ukrainian president.
While he said he would call Mr Zelenskyy, he made no public commitment to a meeting during the media conference.
In an interview with Fox News after the summit, he said Russia and Ukraine would set a date to discuss next steps and a potential ceasefire deal, but did not provide further details on specifics or timings.
“They’re going to set up a meeting now, between President Zelenskyy and President Putin and myself, I guess,” Mr Trump said. He also said that European nations “have to get involved a little bit” but it is “really up to President Zelenskyy to get it done”.
Putin brought his own limo – but travelled in The Beast instead
Image: A US Secret Service agent stands next to ‘The Beast’. Pic: AP/ Luis M Alvarez
After shaking hands on the red carpet, the two leaders made their way towards their waiting vehicles.
But despite Mr Putin arriving with his “Aurus” limousine, and it being spotted on the tarmac near the planes, he got into the American presidential limousine, known as “The Beast”, to travel to the meeting location.
The Russian president was seen with a wide smile on his face, while Mr Trump appeared to be waving to the crowds.
The presidents of the United States and Russia wrapped up critical talks in Alaska without reaching a deal on ending the war in Ukraine.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were on the ground in Anchorage, Alaska, for only about six hours, but the historic yet inconclusive summit still produced some memorable moments.
Both leaders spoke at a news conference, but neither mentioned a ceasefire – something many hoped Mr Trump could persuade Mr Putin to accept during the discussions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who didn’t participate in the talks in Alaska, had said that Ukraine was “counting on America”.
Image: The two leaders meeting each other. Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Image: Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Image: Mr Trump arriving on Air Force One. Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/PA
Image: Mr Putin steps off the Ilyushin Il-96. Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Image: A red carpet was laid out for the Russian leader. Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Image: Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Image: Not far from the military base, several hundred people joined a pro-Ukraine rally. Pic: Nathaniel Wilder/Reuters
Image: They unfurled this huge flag. AP Photo/Jae C Hong
Image: The two leaders held a joint news conference after their discussion. Pic: Reuters
Image: Pic: Sergei Bobylev/ Sputnik/ Kremlin pool via AP
Image: Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US secretary of state Marco Rubio. Pic: AP
Image: Pic: Reuters
Image: Pic: Jae C Hong/PA
Image: Pic: Kevin Lamarque/Reutrs
Image: Pic: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Image: Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Image: President Trump waves goodbye as he boards Air Force One after the meeting. Pic: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/PA