Countering CCP's narrative warfare with the Digital Lennon Wall

‘CCP must lie in order to cover up the terrible things that they’re doing in China, in Hong Kong, and around the world. To do this, they use narrative warfare to control what people see as the truth.’

- CLEO PASKAL

One of the few social media channels to fearlessly cover China is the popular and respected China Uncensored YouTube channel (1.95 million subscribers). To ensure editorial independence, Chris Chappell co-owns America Uncovered LLC-along with co-producers Matt Gnaizda and Shelley Zhang. Together the team not only produces China Uncensored, but three other shows as well, the longer form podacst China Unscripted, America Uncovered and Gamers Unbeaten.

In this edition of "Indo-Pacific: Behind the Headlines" we speak with Chris Chappell, the New York-based creator and host of China Uncensored about their Hong Kong Lennon Wall.

Q: What's the idea behind the Hong Kong Lennon Wall? A: Five years ago, the China Uncensored team was in Hong Kong, covering one of the biggest protests in human history. I will never forget watching 2 million people march through the streets of Hong Kong. They were protesting the Chinese Communist Party's trampling of Hong Kong's freedoms and autonomy. I felt incredibly inspired by Hongkongers" courage.

In 2020, the CCP took advantage of the Covid pandemic to impose a National Security Law on Hong Kong that essentially made protesting illegal. They instilled fear and silenced Hong Kong's civ il society. Today, many Hong Kong activists are imprisoned or in exile.

So to make sure people remember the Hong Kong protests, we created a digital version of one of the things Hongkongers did five years ago. They put up sticky notes on walls all across the city with political statements, and called each location a "Lennon Wall" which has its roots in the anti-communist movements in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. Making a Lennon Wall is extremely illegal in Hong Kong now, though, so we created a digital version online.