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Chinese state media Xinhua on Tuesday released an English-language parody video targeting US and UK fears over tech giant Huawei. And it’s one of those things that is both extremely embarrassing and incredibly fascinating at the same time.
The video, published on Twitter and Youtube, features two figures of British intelligence operatives attempting to parody James Bond, plus Wayne’s World slogans for good measure.
In the video, the two intelligence operatives meet at a castle to get their instructions from “M,” who has a new “top priority” for Western spies. The male agent, known as James Pond (understood?), Speculates that maybe Julian Assange escaped from prison or that Edward Snowden was arrested.
While they wait, one of the officers casually talks about National Security Agency spying. She also mentions that “China” has advanced propaganda capabilities, which was actually revealed to be done by the United States during a hokey reveal when she turns over a file to reveal the letters “USA”.
Pond’s spy character also continues to say “exSQUEEZE me,” which was a catchphrase for SNL’s character Wayne Campbell in the Wayne’s world ’90s movies. It’s unclear why the spy character continues to say a catchphrase from 30 years ago, but Wayne is played by Mike Myers, who was also in the Austin Powers films, a parody of the James Bond films. Maybe the producers of this video got confused and thought Austin Powers was saying, “Excuse me? ” too much? It also says “Yabba Dabba Doo†at one point, Fred Flintstone’s slogan, so who knows? This is all extremely confusing.
When the agents finally talk to “M,” he tells James Pond not to buy a Huawei phone. When Pond asks why, he discovers that his masters are spying on him.
“So why not Huawei? James Pond asks, before learning about Americans’ concerns about backdoors. But the other agent, known as 0.06, reveals there is no real evidence of backdoors and that this is a sinister propaganda campaign by Western intelligence agencies. .
Huawei has come under attack from Western governments who believe the company’s technology could be compromised by the Chinese government. US officials have not given details on how China would theoretically initiate an attack on the US communications infrastructure, but last month there were reports of Chinese spies who managed to penetrate Australian networks. in 2012 using a Huawei software update, according to Bloomberg News. This is the kind of claim that is incredibly difficult to independently confirm, of course.
At the end of the video, the two agents are given CIA certified phones, which are obviously buggy. You really have to see the video to appreciate how forced and strange it all is.
China clearly sees the hypocrisy of tech espionage as a weak spot for the United States in the New Cold War. In February 2019, a Huawei executive launched a similar attack at Mobile World Congress, citing Edward Snowden’s revelations as a reason not to believe U.S. officials regarding espionage allegations.
Chinese state media propaganda in English has become more and more bizarre over the past two years. In May 2020, Xinhua released a cartoon character called Terry-cotta to counter claims that China was accumulating PPE around the start of the covid-19 pandemic. And Xinhua more recently posted rap videos about American hypocrisy.
No one knows what 2022 has in store for the new US-China Cold War, but if today’s post is any guide, we can probably bet it’s going to be filled with plenty of weird propaganda videos.
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