The Jerusalem Post is awfully willing to provide the Chinese Communist Party with a podium for its propaganda, including attacks on the independence of the Republic of China on Taiwan. This is an odd form of editorial hospitality for a paper that would like the country in which it is published to survive the nihilistic enmity of some of its own neighbors.
Views
On December 29, 2024, Xiao Junzheng, ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the State of Israel, published an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post purporting to “explain the facts” of what is going on in the Taiwan Strait to “my Israeli friends so they can understand and support the one-China principle and appreciate China’s efforts to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
On March 16, 2025 in the Post, Xiao criticized Trump’s tariffs, stressed that China is ready to act as an “ ‘anchor of stability’ in the world economy,” and affirmed the importance of China-Israel friendship.
On April 7, 2025 in the Post, Xiao celebrated the extent of “intergovernmental projects” and “people-to-people technological innovation cooperation” between the two countries.
On May 8, 2025 in the Post, Xiao enumerated the merits of an Israeli port, Haifa Bayport, “constructed and operated by Shanghai International Port Group.”
On May 24, 2026 in the Post, Xiao declared that the attempt by the Democratic Progressive Party, the ruling party of the Republic of China, to participate in World Health Organization, was “doomed to fail.” “The international community’s commitment to the one-China principle is not to be challenged or shaken.” Xiao urged his “Israeli friends” not to be deceived “by ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces” and to firmly support the PRC goal of “re”-unification with Taiwan.
On July 6, 2026 in the Post, Xiao gushed about the wonderfulness of the Chinese Communist Party, by then in existence for 105 years. Did you know that “2026 marks the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan”? A new chapter was opening even as “the Party’s founding mission remains unchanged,” a mission pertaining to helping create a “shared future for humanity.” Don’t look to this piece for details about the tens of millions starved or shot under the rule of Mao or the Party’s present-day treatment of the Chinese people.
On August 17, 2026 in the Post, Xiao asserted in distortive commentary that “History must not be distorted, ‘Taiwan independence’ is ultimately doomed.” Although claiming that “the Lai Ching-te authorities” have “gone to great lengths to whitewash and glorify Japanese colonial rule,” Xiao quoted not one of these alleged distortions.
“We hope our Israeli friends will see the situation clearly…recognize the sinister intentions and political schemes of the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, and understand and support the efforts of the Chinese government” to achieve national “re-”unification, i.e., subjugation of the Taiwanese to Beijing’s autocratic rule.
“Our values”
A year-long gap in Post articles by Xiao, from May 2025 to May 2026, suggests the possibility that the publication came to think better of providing the CCP with this outlet. Whatever the explanation, Xiao is back in the saddle now though.
In 2023, an incoming Jerusalem Post editor had provided an official statement of “our values.” “We believe in the Jewish people’s inalienable right to self-determination…. We are a pro-democracy paper…. We are an antiracist paper…. We are a marketplace of ideas. We will, from time to time, provide a platform for perspectives we find difficult to swallow because we believe they inform and enrich the conversation.”
The CCP has many ways to disseminate its propaganda. Israeli papers can report on the propaganda in a way that doesn’t amount to providing a soapbox to official spokesmen for totalitarian evil. To be tolerant enough to provide such a soapbox should not be one of the Jerusalem Post’s “values.”
Publishing any of the Chinese ambassador’s bloviations would have been okay if in each case the text had included bracketed elaborations of relevant facts omitted by the author and corrections of all the lies. Or at least if each article had been immediately followed by a thorough rebuttal. But then the ambassador might not have wanted to keep publishing in the Jerusalem Post.
