Sydney:
The United States has known as China’s use of a digitally manipulated image of an Australian soldier a “new low”, weighing into the dispute involving Canberra and Beijing more than the tweet.
China has rebuffed Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s calls for an apology just after its foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted the image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan youngster on Monday.
China’s embassy mentioned the “rage and roar” from Australian politicians and media more than the image was an overreaction.
But other nations, like the United States, New Zealand and France, have expressed concern at the Chinese foreign ministry’s use of the manipulated image on an official Twitter account.
“The CCP’s latest attack on Australia is another example of its unchecked use of disinformation and coercive diplomacy. Its hypocrisy is obvious to all,” the U.S. State Department mentioned on Wednesday, adding that although China doctored pictures on Twitter, its citizens had been prevented from reading Twitter posts.
The department’s deputy spokesman Cale Brown mentioned the fabricated image of the soldier was “a new low, even for the Chinese Communist Party”.
“As the CCP spreads disinformation, it covers up its horrendous human rights abuses, including the detention of more than a million Muslims in Xinjiang,” Brown wrote in a tweet.
France’s foreign affairs spokesman mentioned on Tuesday the tweeted image was “especially shocking” and the comments by Zhao “insulting for all countries whose armed forces are currently engaged in Afghanistan”.
Morrison utilised Chinese social media platform WeChat to criticise the “false image”.
In a WeChat message on Tuesday evening, Morrison wrote that the diplomatic dispute more than the image of the soldier “does not diminish respect and appreciation for the Chinese community in Australia”.
He defended Australia’s handling of a war crimes investigation into the actions of specific forces in Afghanistan, and mentioned Australia is in a position to deal with “thorny issues” like this in a transparent manner.
Australia has previously mentioned 19 soldiers will be referred for prospective criminal prosecution for the killings of unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians.
WeChat has 690,000 active every day customers in Australia. Morrison’s message had been study by 57,000 WeChat customers by Wednesday.
Zhao’s tweet, pinned to the best of his Twitter account, had been “liked” by 55,000 followers, just after Twitter labelled it as sensitive content material but declined the Australian government’s request to take away the image.
Twitter is blocked in China, but has been utilised by Chinese diplomats who have adopted combative “Wolf Warrior diplomacy” techniques this year.
China on Friday imposed dumping tariffs of up to 200% on Australian wine imports, successfully shutting off the biggest export industry for the Australian wine market, amid a worsening diplomatic dispute that has observed a really serious of trade reprisals imposed by China.
(This story has not been edited by The Spuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)