CHINA / DIPLOMACY
US website omits petition for objective China views
Published: Nov 04, 2021 08:47 PM
French writer Maxime Vivas

French writer Maxime Vivas


The online petition launched by French writer Maxime Vivas calling for objective views on China is unavailable on the website where it was first posted - change.org, the world's largest petition platform - with no specific reason given, and the French writer and one signatory slammed the West's so-called freedom of speech.

"The petition for the right to speak differently about China was censored by change.org. It told me: 'This petition is not available. Either the URL is wrong or the petition violated our community rules, or the author of the petition deleted it,'" Vivas tweeted on Thursday. 

Vivas launched the petition on Tuesday on change.org to share his stories of being insulted and attacked for his objective views on China, and called on all sectors of society to have an objective view on China. More than 150 people from different fields globally, including former ambassadors, TV hosts, architects and journalists, signed the online petition. 

However, the link for the petition has been unavailable since Thursday. Vivas told the Global Times on Thursday that he was told the order to delete the online petition from the US-based website came from the US. 

"It's bad for us, but worse for them… Not only are they lying about China, but they want to stop us from saying it," Vivas said, noting that they have posted the online petition on legrangesoir.info, and will not cease complaining to change.org. 

Change.org is a US-based petition website that claims to have over 400 million users. As of press time, it has not responded to the Global Times' questions on which community rules Vivas' petition has violated.

Vivas, who went to Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region twice, published a book, Uygurs, to put an end to the fake news, in December 2020. In his book, Vivas described his observations of Xinjiang's counter-terrorism efforts and the region's development, and analyzed the relations the US National Endowment for Democracy has with the secessionist World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and NGOs like Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The petition noted that an avalanche of insults was heaped on Vivas for his views on Xinjiang. Some French media called him a "useful idiot," or "conspirator" bought by China.  

While some signatories suspect the US-based website deleted the petition for political reasons, Zheng Ruolin, a senior Chinese media professional and European studies expert who lived in France for several years, told the Global Times that this is a clear example of the hypocrisy of the so-called freedom of speech that the US and the West have boasted. 

Zheng is one of the signatories to the online petition. 

"Wars of aggression are prepared by great campaigns of lies. The first victim in a war is the truth. That is why, with more and more friends, I want to show another face of China and fight the fake news which caricatures it and prevents us from fully understanding this great country with a multi-millennial civilization. China is in competition with the US. But she is not the enemy of France. We must treat her as a partner and friend," Vivas told the Global Times. 

Although the Chinese Embassy in France also posted the original petition on its Twitter account, the Global Times found that no French media had reported on the petition. Some observers said the media intentionally ignored the petition.