Ulterior Motives (别有用心 bié yǒu yòng xīn)

Having “ulterior motives” (别有用心, bié yǒu yòng xīn), an accusation typically lobbed at critics of the Celebration-state, is typically deployed in tandem with the time period “international hostile forces” (境外势力, jìngwài shìli). Such accusations are used to discredit professional criticism of the federal government, and to indicate that dissent is in some way inorganic or nefarious. The Celebration-state’s record of those that allegedly maintain “ulterior motives” (or are “unwitting dupes” of those that do) is prolonged and ever-expanding, together with: attorneys caught up within the 2015 “Black Friday” sweep, mourners commemorating the victims of a 2022 Urumqi fireplace, historians “reflecting on historical past,” information shops masking the persecution of Uyghurs, subtitlers of American sitcoms, and college students protesting campus lockdowns in the course of the “zero-COVID” interval, to call however just a few. The phrase’s ubiquity in propaganda has led to its sarcastic adoption by netizens who use it to level out the absurdity of sure features of Chinese language politics or coverage. Within the instance beneath, a Weibo consumer facetiously asks why revanchism is widely known when the goal is Japan, however not Russia: 

Wengtao2015 (@翁涛2015): Should you yell on the road, “Diaoyu Islands belong to China!” you’re a patriot. Should you as a substitute yell, “Outer Mongolia and Vladivostok belong to China!” you might be arrested as a mad individual or somebody who has ulterior motives! Why is that? (February 14, 2015) [Source]

The Chinese language Ministry of International Affairs (MoFA) typically accuses america and different international locations of getting “ulterior motives” in worldwide disputes. In 2023 alone, International Ministry spokespeople accused america of getting “ulterior motives” for convicting two Chinese language nationals for his or her roles in “Operation Fox Hunt,” and for the U.S. State Division asking China to abide by a 2016 resolution by the Everlasting Court docket of Arbitration in The Hague that dominated in favor of the Philippines in a China-Philippines territorial dispute within the South China Sea. MoFA spokespeople accused Japan of getting “ulterior motives” for purportedly not inviting Chinese language media to a press convention (held in China) in regards to the launch of handled wastewater from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. In addition they accused reporters of getting “ulterior motives” for asking whether or not the Chinese language ambassador to France’s excessive rhetoric on Ukraine—after he made an announcement during which he denied the sovereignty of ex-Soviet states—mirrored the official Chinese language authorities place on the matter.

The phrase has additionally been used to criticize and suppress expressions of mourning. After over 7000 shoddily-constructed lecture rooms collapsed within the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, killing over 5000 college students and injuring 15,000, the literary personage Yu Qiuyu wrote “A Tearful Request for the Earthquake Survivors,” during which he begged the mother and father of victims killed at school collapses to cease protesting lest they be manipulated by these with “ulterior motives.” The general public was incensed, and plenty of on-line commenters accused Yu of in search of to guard corrupt officers, with some even “tearfully urging Yu Qiuyu to leap in a river.” Nonetheless, spontaneous expressions of mourning that happen after tragedies or disasters proceed to be labeled by CCP officers and nationalist commentators because the work of shadowy forces with “ulterior motives”—a bald-faced and cynical try to strip residents of their company.