Right Wing Magazine’s Disdain For Ukraine Leads Outlet to Publish a Propagandist For China

A woman looks at residential buildings bombed in Kyiv, Ukraine. AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd.

What happens when American conservatives abandon the idea that the United States must lead on the world stage? Evidently, they end up amplifying propagandists of its chief geopolitical rival.

The thesis of Dan Steinbock’s op-ed for the The American Conservative is predictable enough for the publication: The continued provision of aid from the US to Ukraine ten months after it was invaded by Russia and “refusal to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate security interests in Ukraine” constitute strategic mistakes.

“The U.S./NATO-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has already bankrupted the Ukrainian economy,” Steinbock argued, adding that the war will “also accelerate the decline of the U.S. international role and global economic prospects.”

Before the second paragraph reaches its close, there are several questionable logical leaps that can only be explained by ideological bias. The war, initiated by an unprovoked Russia, is described as the result of “legitimate security interests in Ukraine.” The Ukrainians, whose resolve to hold their ground could hardly be questioned by an informed observer at this point, meanwhile, are fighting a “U.S./NATO-led proxy war against Russia.” It’s a unique perspective, certainly.

But Russia isn’t the only foreign power whose interests are reflected by Steinbock’s framing. China, too, is beneficiary of his selective generosity.

Take Steinbock’s fretting that the Biden administration is extending “its Ukraine doctrine from Russia to Iran, Taiwan, and elsewhere.” Steinbock purports to be worried about an extension of the “Ukraine doctrine” because of the economic ramifications in the United States caused by deficit spending, but is that a credulous concern of an “internationally recognized strategist of the multipolar world,” considering just 12% of the U.S. budget is spent on national defense?

In another instance, he laments that prior to the war “Ukraine, under Zelensky’s leadership, was still positioned to play a critical role as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe itself, thanks to its vital position in China’s Bridge and Belt Initiative (BRI).” No evidence is marshaled to support this assertion of Chinese economic heroism.

Without knowledge of Steinbock’s background, these two asides might be dismissed as the product of an unfocused and ill-informed author. With said knowledge, they emerge as something more nefarious.

Steinbock is a featured contributor at China Daily, an outlet — I kid you not — owned and operated by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party. There, he has published pieces including “Chinese economy meets rising risks with resiliency,” and urged American allies, such as Australia, to put more distance between themselves and Washington.

On Wednesday, within the same 24 hours that The American Conservative published Steinbock, he was the subject of a China Daily article titled “Expert: China’s economic recovery in 2023 will help the world.”

In another piece for the European Financial Review, Steinbock called the allegation that the CCP is committing genocide against China’s Uyghur Muslim minority  “unsubstantiated,” and chastised the Trump and Biden administrations for making it, deeming it “outright bizarre in the light of US history.”

Moreover, as National Review‘s Jimmy Quinn pointed out, Steinbock was once a fellow with a Chinese government-affiliated think tank whose president is the deputy director of a CCP arm dedicated to working on foreign influence operations.

Per the president’s bio on the SIIS website: “Chen Dongxiao is a member of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, deputy director of the Foreign Friendship Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference…” pic.twitter.com/sP2Py657MX

— Jimmy Quinn (@james_t_quinn) January 4, 2023

The decision to publish Steinbock in spite of these myriad red flags is an embarrassing one, but mistakes happen. They can and should be forgiven.

It should perhaps lead the editors at The American Conservative, though, to consider why it is that their position on Ukraine and other international issues so inconveniently resembles those of genocide-denying CCP propagandists.

The American Conservative did not respond to a request for comment.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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