Ultranationalist Russian media personality Sergey Mardan has sparked anger on Chinese social media with his on-air remark that Russia must subdue its neighbors.
The Saturday Mardan host said that "Russia is an empire, and an empire can only be a military state. And a military state must fight."
"It [Russia] must make the surrounding barbarians submit or be pacified," he said, warning the country would itself "be pacified...if we aren't strong enough economically, militarily, politically, and demographically." Mardan has previously expressed nostalgia for czarist Russia, whose territory encompassed Ukraine and several other modern states.
"A funny story: Russian propaganda TV host Mardan claimed, 'Russia is a military empire. It always expands and subjugates her neighbors,'" European Resilience Initiative Center founder Sergej Sumlenny wrote in his translation of the comment on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday. "He did not think that Chinese listened, translated, and published this in China."
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, declared a "no-limits partnership" shortly before the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, Moscow has increasingly relied on trade with China, particularly its demand for oil and natural gas, to keep the Russian economy afloat amid heavy international sanctions.
NewsletterBeijing maintains it is neutral regarding the conflict but has largely censored criticism of the war on Chinese social media.
Mardan's comments surfaced on China's X-like social media platform Weibo and caused a stir, with some netizens taking offense.
Exclusively Available to Subscribers Try it now for $1"Without China's support, Russia would have collapsed in this war," one wrote.
"Russia has no friends. Oh—Iran and North Korea," another quipped.
Another Weibo user said the comment "speaks to the heart of Russians, who basically see themselves as Europeans and are looking down on Asians."
"Tsarist Russia and the USSR were really unfriendly [toward China], and the decaying Russia is fine, I guess," another said.
Other commenters struck a more realist tone on Beijing-Moscow ties.
"It's normal for great powers to take precautions against each other," one wrote.
"Does anyone in power really believe China and Russia have been friends for generations? We just have the same [national] interests now," said another.
Yun Sun, the director of the Stimson Center's China Program, suggested the
limited circulation of Mardan's translated comment, with the top post only garnering 636 comments as of time of writing, could suggest censors have gotten to many of them.
Another indicator of this could be the large proportion of moderate comments. "So it's either been 'cleaned' by the government or something else," she said.
Newsweek reached out with written requests for comment to the Russian Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy in Russia.
Mardan is known for his bellicose remarks, prompting a group of human rights organizations to file a submission to the International Criminal Court over his alleged incitement to violence toward Ukrainians.
As the war in Ukraine approached its two-year anniversary in February, the TV personality characterized the Russian people as "aggressors" and "cruel," saying they "always come back for what's theirs."
Update 06/12/2024, 11:46 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a comment from Yun Sun and additional context.
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About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
