The American Jewish Committee (AJC) denounced the ‘despicable … anti-Semitic tweet from Chinese state media.’
A caricature of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken published by the state-owned Xinhua news agency, which serves as the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece, has been slammed for its explicit use of anti-Semitic stereotypes.
A report about a meeting in Kuwait between Blinken and World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the end of July was accompanied by a lurid cartoon depicting the Secretary of State as devil-horned and clutching a report about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The illustration depicted Blinken towering over Ghebreyesus and wearing a long cape decorated with a U.S. flag, his face distinguished by the outsized “Jewish” nose favored by anti-Semitic caricaturists down the centuries. Two large horns were shown sticking out of his head, invoking an anti-Jewish stereotype from the medieval period.
In a posting on Twitter on Friday, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) denounced the “despicable … anti-Semitic tweet from Chinese state media.”
Pointing out that Blinken is “a Jew and stepson of a Holocaust survivor,” the AJC said that the Xinhua cartoon “utilizes overt tropes of anti-Semitism, including a large nose, devil horns, and accusations of global control.”
“Throughout history, anti-Semites have used ‘Jewish’ features, like enlarged noses, in cartoons or propaganda to sway the public against the Jewish people,” the AJC explained.
In May, the Chinese Embassy in the Japanese capital Tokyo came in for condemnation after it tweeted an anti-Semitic image, which it later deleted.
The embassy posted a cartoon that showed the United States as the Grim Reaper, dressed in a “Stars and Stripes” outfit, and leaving behind a trail of blood as it walks from one door to another. On top of the doors are names of Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Syria, Libya and Iraq. The reaper’s scythe is dripping blood and has the Israeli flag on it, complete with a Star of David.
The image’s caption was in Japanese and said, “If the United States brought ‘democracy,’ it would be like this.”