China’s state media seizes on Kyle Rittenhouse divisions as signs of American decline

Case reveals all the contradictions in US society, broadcaster says, in broader effort to present the country as chaotic
Other outlets say the nation is moving towards breaking in two

US-China relations

Kinling Loin Beijing

Published: 5:11pm, 23 Nov 2021

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Chinese state media have seized on polarisation in the United States over the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict as a sign of “decline” and “disintegration” of American democracy and governance.

Fierce debates about race, gun rights, and self-defence erupted in the US after a court in the state of Wisconsin on Friday cleared Rittenhouse, now 18, of all charges over the fatal shooting of two men and the wounding of another during racial justice protests in Kenosha in August last year.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, which has reported on the case and the fallout since Saturday, said on Tuesday that the “Rittenhouse incident is like a macroscope, revealing all the divisions and contradictions in American society”.

“The verdict has also pushed Biden into a political dilemma,” an anchor said, referring to President Joe Biden who has publicly voiced his anger over the verdict but urged the public to abide by the jury system.

The anchor said Republicans were trying to use the Rittenhouse case to stir up public anger towards Democrats.

State-run China Daily, an English-language newspaper, also played up the divisions, publishing an article in Chinese on NetEase news platform 163.com about former US president Donald Trump congratulating Rittenhouse, as well as clashes between riot police and protesters on the weekend after the verdict.

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The coverage is part of a broader messaging campaign by Chinese state media to present the American system as chaotic amid a growing rivalry between the two countries.

Relations between China and the United States are at one of their lowest points in decades, marked by a wide-ranging conflict and competition on human rights, technology, and handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

State media also seized on unrest in the US in January, touting the strength of its authoritarian system and the turmoil in Washington when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.

At the time, state news agency Xinhua called it the collapse of “the American beacon” for Western liberal democracy, proving the system was a “failure”.

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Columns and reports in various Chinese media outlets have continued the theme in recent days, saying the Rittenhouse case was a tipping point of further “division” in the US.

“The US is one firm step towards breaking into two nations,” tabloid Global Times said in a headline on a column published under the pseudonym Gengzhi Ge on Sunday.

“The follow-up analyses in US media and the polarised views between Republicans and Democrats have again demonstrated how divided American society is,” the column said.

“This has pushed for more Americans to think - if our values and understanding are so different, why are we in the same country making each other’s lives difficult? Why don’t we split up?”

The article was read more than 100,000 times on WeChat by Tuesday.

Another popular opinion piece published on the social media account Niu Tanqin mocked the divisions exposed by the Rittenhouse verdict, saying they were “yet another beautiful sight to behold”.

The account, run by Liu Hong, a veteran editor of a magazine affiliated with Xinhua, was a reference to a comment US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made in June 2019 about mass anti-government protests in Hong Kong.

The protests over a controversial extradition bill were largely peaceful at the time but Pelosi’s words have been used in Chinese memes showing chaotic scenes, including from the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the US.