Followers of the QAnon movement now reportedly believe that former President Donald Trump has been purposely mispronouncing "China" because he wants to send a secret message about Ukraine.
According to Vice's David Gilbert, the new conspiracy theory was first noticed by disinformation expert Marc Owen Jones.
The conspiracy theory was born after QAnon followers "discovered" a place in Ukraine called "chy-na." Trump is known for his repeated mispronunciation of "China."
QAnon followers surmised that Trump must secretly mean that Covid-19 originated in Ukraine.
Gilbert notes:
Conspiracists found further “proof” of this theory when someone used Google Translate to figure out that in Ukrainian, “chy-na” means “price.” Combine that with the fact that Trump once said that China would “pay a big price” for spreading COVID-19, and QAnon followers believed they had uncovered some sort of high-level secret code.
They have not uncovered some sort of high-level secret code.
The Ukrainian “chy-na” is in fact just part of the name of what appears to be a village on the outskirts of Lviv. In Ukrainian, it is called “Шпильчина,” but on Google Maps, it is referred to as “Shpyl’chyna.” Unfortunately, this is a bad transliteration: The ‘y’ is meant to represent a very soft ‘i’ sound that’s hard to transliterate, because it’s rarely used in English.
Also, in Ukrainian, the word term “chy-na” on its own has several meanings. One of them is “price,” but it can also mean “rank” and “tire,” which don’t fit quite as neatly into QAnon’s conspiracy theory.
QAnon followers have previously indicated that they believe Trump is working with Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop Ukraine from unleashing bioweapons that are being carried to Russia by birds that were trained by the United States.
Hatred of China has been a central tenet of the MAGA movement but QAnon followers seem to be rethinking that position after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"In recent days, some QAnon influencers have begun to attempt to reconcile these disparate worldviews by claiming that Xi is now also part of the secret Trump-Putin alliance that is fighting the 'deep state,'" Gilbert revealed. "And if QAnon does fully embrace the idea that China is not the enemy – and that Trump is secretly working with Beijing – experts fear that just as Russia’s government did, Beijing could seek to exploit those beliefs."
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