During the Qin Dynasty over two millennia ago, a powerful official named Zhao Gao brought a deer before the emperor and proclaimed it a horse. When the emperor correctly identified it as a deer, Zhao Gao turned to the court officials, asking their opinion. Those who valued truth over their lives agreed with the emperor. Those who feared Zhao Gao’s power nodded and called it a horse. This ancient tale zhiluweima — pointing at a deer and calling it a horse — remains strikingly relevant today as China attempts to reshape international perceptions through deliberate distortion.
The latest manifestation of this ancient strategy emerged following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent statement that a forced unification of Taiwan by mainland China would likely require Japan to respond militarily in self-defense. China’s state media and diplomatic apparatus from Washington to Tokyo, Paris to Cairo, immediately launched a coordinated campaign to paint these defensive concerns as evidence of Japanese militarism and warmongering, a classic case of pointing at a deer and calling it a horse.
China’s longstanding portrayal of Japan as a rapidly militarizing threat represents a calculated distortion of reality that serves multiple strategic purposes. Like Zhao Gao testing courtiers’ loyalty, Beijing seeks to identify which nations will echo its narrative despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
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