Wang Fang, the wife of pro-CCP blogger Zhou Xiaoping sang the Soviet song “Katyusha” in a place where Russians killed more than 300 civilians.
by Massimo Introvigne
There are symbolic ways in which China expresses its support to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Some are more disgusting than others.
The Mariupol Drama Theatre is a symbol of Russian disregard for civilians and human lives. There, more than three hundred of the civilians who were using the theatre as a shelter were killed by Russian bombings in March 2022.
Wang Fang is a minor Chinese singer, mostly promoted by the regime for her performances of “red” pro-CCP songs. She is the wife of Zhou Xiaoping, an equally “patriotic” blogger and a protégé of Lu Wei, the director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, who was promoted to a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference this year as a reward for his propaganda.
The couple visited occupied Mariupol on September 8, met with local pro-Russian authorities, and posted about their visit on Chinese and Russian social media. The most watched Russian TV channel, Rossiya 1, also mentioned their visit.
Wang was filmed singing the Soviet patriotic song “Katyusha” in the destroyed Mariupol Drama Theatre. The song was composed in 1938 but became popular during World War II, and singing it in occupied Ukraine clearly alluded to the Russian claim that it is fighting “Nazis” in Ukraine just as the Soviet Union had once fought Hitler.
After Ukrainian protests, Zhao defended his wife’s performance by posting on social media that for him Mariupol and the Theatre are a symbol of Russians and their allies’ bravery in “resisting various attacks by NATO mercenaries and Ukrainian troops.”
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
