🇨🇳🎭 Is China Investing in War Propaganda?

The Propagandist and His Play

Recently, Edward Chesnokov, a pro-Kremlin commentator and fringe playwright, announced that a provincial theater in Hebei, China, had acquired the rights to stage his drama “Varangian.” It might sound trivial — until one reads the text.

The heroine of Varangian is a woman of Ukrainian origin who solemnly declares:

“I may have been born in Ukraine, but I will die for the right and honor of being Russian.”

This line is not only ideologically disturbing — it’s also derivative. It echoes the infamous final scene of Nikolai Gogol’s Taras Bulba, where the protagonist kills his own son for defecting to the “enemy,” and later dies shouting:

“Let the whole world know what it means to be Russian and Orthodox!”

Where Gogol built moral tension and tragic paradox, Chesnokov offers brute didacticism. There is no inner struggle, no conflict — only a flat, soulless embrace of violence cloaked as virtue. The heroine does not question; she converts. This is not tragedy. It is a manual for war.

The Play No One Wanted — Except Beijing

Despite Russia’s state-sponsored demand for “patriotic art,” Varangian has never been staged in the country of its origin. Not one theater, not one director, not even a provincial cultural house took the bait. Why?

• The text is too crude, even for Kremlin standards.
• It is overtly toxic and ideologically rigid.
• It risks backlash in international contexts.

And yet, China bought the rights.

This is shocking, given that Chinese cultural policy under Xi Jinping is built on Confucian discipline, ideological control, and a rejection of “decadent” individualism. Contemporary Chinese theater is oriented around collective virtue, red-patriotic themes, and the suppression of romanticized violence or martyrdom.

So why would a Chinese theatre acquire a play that glorifies death, betrayal, and ultranationalism?

Three Plausible Explanations

There are only a few logical scenarios for why this transaction happened:

1. Cosmetic ownership with content control.
 The Chinese side may have bought a sanitized adaptation, carefully rewritten to emphasize external threats, national unity, and party loyalty — cutting out the darkest imperialistic overtones.

2. Silent censorship by acquisition.
 Sometimes, the best way to prevent something from being seen is to buy it. China routinely purchases rights to politically sensitive works — not to stage them, but to bury them.

3. Soft recruitment of Chesnokov into China’s media orbit.
 The most likely explanation. Chesnokov is a regular contributor to Global Times, fiercely loyal to China’s foreign policy line, and known for echoing the Kremlin’s pro-Beijing rhetoric. Buying the play could be less about theater, more about grooming an obedient media conduit.

Soft Power and Soft Fascism

Let’s be clear: this is not a cultural exchange. This is not artistic diplomacy. It is ideological investment.

Chesnokov publicly announced that a portion of his fee would be sent to fund Russian troops in occupied Ukrainian territories. In this sense, China — however indirectly — is sponsoring a man who is bankrolling fascist warfare.

No amount of talk about “neutrality” can erase the symbolic weight of that act.

In Moscow, this play was deemed unfit even for propaganda. In Beijing, it is quietly paid for. That says everything.

The Bigger Picture

China’s cultural foreign policy has long moved past aesthetics. The CCP uses media and cultural exports as tools of strategic influence, not understanding. Educational collaborations, think tank projects, translation deals, and now theatrical rights — all are part of a soft-colonial apparatus designed to secure loyal intermediaries.

When an ideological agitator discarded by his own regime finds support in China — we must ask:
 Who really controls the narrative now?

The story of Varangian is not about a forgotten play.
 It is about how Beijing cultivates ideological footholds where others see only noise.
 And how war propaganda — rejected in Moscow — may yet find its second life… under red lanterns.