The Great Translation Movement () is an online anti-war movement and Twitter account launched during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It seeks to document displays of ultranationalist, pro-Russian and anti-Western sentiment in China by translating comments found in the Chinese internet. The languages it has translated to include English, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. The Guardian has pointed out that the Great Translation Movement has been a source for English-language speakers to understand the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and state media's reaction towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine, though experts cautioned seeing the posts as representative of the Chinese public, noting that China has a highly censored media environment.
History
Establishment on Reddit (February 24–March 2) The Great Translation Movement originated on several Chinese-language subreddits. Giving a reason for its founding, a member of the movement said in an interview that hoped that "people in more countries realize that the people of China are not 'warm, hospitable, and gentle' as the CCP's foreign propaganda declares, but instead are a proud, arrogant, vigorously in love with populism, cruel, bloodthirsty unsympathetic collective" (). The person additionally said that he hopes that all those in the world with Chinese heritage can "leave behind these negative emotions, and integrate properly with the civilized world, and be ashamed of their own ignorance". Participants called for commentary that supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the Chinese internet to be translated and disseminated on foreign social media platforms. The movement called for monetary support for the Ukrainian people. Within the first week of its establishment, donations made publicly by the organizers on Reddit reached approximately $10,000.
One of the participant subreddits, r/ChonglangTV, was known to espouse extreme anti-Chinese sentiment despite being a Chinese-language subreddit, with statements supportive of the Nanking Massacre and the Empire of Japan being typical, leading to many Chinese internet users becoming hostile to the movement.
Reddit ban and shift to other platforms (March 2–March 8) On March 2, one of the subreddits organizing the movement, r/ChonglangTV, was shut down by Reddit for "exposing privacy of others." One of the participants claimed the ban was in response to the doxing of a Weibo user who boasted of having blocked all money transactions via SWIFT from Shanghai to Ukraine. A participant of the subreddit told Radio Free Asia that the Reddit ban was due to Chinese long-arm internet censorship. The Great Translation Movement then moved to other platforms such as Twitter and Pingcong. On March 19, Pingcong employees were detained by the Chinese government after starting a channel for the movement on Pingcong's home page.
Reactions
Overseas Chinese
Positive
Political scholar Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, expressed support for the movement. She made the following comment:
Also, some Chinese dissidents support the movement because it creates "a dilemma for Chinese censorship authorities." Censoring extremist or disturbing content written by Chinese nationalists could alienate CCP supporters, but not censoring such content ends up constituting tacit approval.
Negative
Criticisms of the movement on Chinese-language WeChat boards contend that the movement will intensify xenophobia and racism against Asian Americans. Furthermore, DW also noted that misogynistic comments about Ukrainian women were not just limited to mainland China, but Taiwan as well, with some Chinese officials even accusing "Taiwanese separatists" of pretending to be mainland Chinese while posting such comments.
Han Yang, a former Chinese diplomat who now supports the Great Translation Movement, has stated that he disagrees with the desire of some members of the movement to paint the Chinese people as cruel and bloodthirsty, which he believes helps Chinese state-run media discredit the movement.
Chinese government and state media
Chinese state media criticized the movement and described it as "cherry picked content". The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the People's Daily, claimed that the movement is "a farce" backed by western media such as Voice of America that is selectively translating extreme commentary from the Chinese internet.