Distant War, Disposable Lives

In the wake of recent U.S.-Israel airstrikes on the Islamic Regime in Iran (IRI) targeting the Ayatollah, my feeds on Chinese social media platforms are filled with screenshots of users offering “advice” to their Embassy in Beijing. Why do people thousands of miles away care enough to cheer, mock, or even strategize a war they will never experience? Part of it is politics: for many, Iran stands in for resistance against U.S. power. But part of it is the internet itself, which makes war feel like something you can comment on, play with, and move on from—and that is exactly the problem.

The rhetoric circulating on Chinese social media reflects a broader phenomenon: digital spectatorship can normalize forms of escalation that would otherwise be morally unthinkable. When conflicts are experienced only through screens, the destruction of critical infrastructure—water systems, electricity, hospitals—can begin to feel like an abstract strategic move rather than a humanitarian catastrophe. 

In one of the screenshots, a user offered a poorly drawn missile design filled with Star-Wars-level technology (featuring ultra-red lasers and y-ray, as well as 100,000 tons of TNT). Another netizen suggested the IRI military fire at the Israel-Gaza border security checkpoints to force Gazans to flood into Israel; he also urged IRI to attack Israel’s desalination plants in order to sabotage its water industry supplying fresh water to millions of Jews and Arabs. Absurdly, the IRI Embassy blocked the second adviser, resulting in the commentator angrily calling them cowards.

Consequently, these interactions sparked a wave of debate among Chinese students overseas on widely used platforms like WeChat and Xiaohongshu. What began as mockery of absurd “advice” quickly evolved into a more polarized discussion—not only about the war itself, but about how Chinese respondents ought to respond to it.

Some participants expressed support for IRI through a geopolitical lens. They framed the conflict as part of a broader struggle against U.S. dominance, interpreting attacks on Israel as a way to challenge Western influence in the region. War, in this view, becomes a matter of strategic positioning, where outcomes take precedence over the human cost required to challenge Western influence in the region. Despite the advancement of cross-cultural relations, blindly anti-Western sentiments in Chinese public discourse persist due to our past under Western colonialism.

There are even some who have utilized this war as an opportunity for personal gain by siding with the Islamic Regime. Jin, a former overseas Chinese student who now trades stocks, even prayed on his WeChat channel for Iran to attack Israel so his portfolio would rise.

On the other hand, many students in my friend group pushed back, expressing discomfort with such statements. They questioned not only the feasibility of these “strategies,” but also the morality of treating civilians as expendable tools. Especially in the second case, the commentator was cruel enough to disregard both Israeli lives and Gazan lives by forcing Gazans into Israel for political gain and using them as human shields for the Ayatollah regime. 

This idea demonstrates strong indifference toward lives on all three sides. In his narrative, Gazans are not civilians in war, not political individuals with bodily autonomy, but tools randomly passed around and consumed. This is more than cruelty—it is a collapse of moral imagination. 

The dehumanization was so astounding that even the IRI Embassy had to block him. 

What is striking about this debate is that it is entirely shaped by the same condition: distance. None are participants in the conflict, nor are they directly affected by its consequences. Instead, these distant spectators engage with war as if in the hypothetical.  

In this context, destruction is no longer experienced as acute human suffering but as an abstract possibility. Israelis and Palestinians are seen as unhuman, but puppets for a role play. Cruelty becomes an act with zero outcomes. War becomes entertainment. 

The commentators are not born evil; they are situated within a context that severs words and ideas from their consequences.

Of course, this problem isn’t only found in Chinese discourse. Social media repackaged war into a game of participation using likes, shares, and comments, as its currency while offering “advice” devolves into a low-cost performance of engagement. 

Suffering used to arrive in the form of experience, but now is sliced up into screenshots, short videos, and hashtags, all formatted for quick consumption. Watching no longer means experiencing, but becomes closer to consumption; emotions are no longer deepened, but numbed. War is transformed into content, while human struggles lose their weight.

 In this process, war is recreated by platform algorithms. The more extreme and provocative the content, the more attention it gets, so content that dehumanizes others is inherently encouraged. 

While the particulars of this story are unique, it also epitomizes a global trend and how we ingest and contribute ideas. 

As individuals, we need to start seeing people as people and caution against dehumanization. More importantly, participation should not remain confined to the screen. Supporting humanitarian organizations, engaging in informed discussion, and maintaining ethical boundaries in speech are small but necessary ways to reconnect words with their consequences. Only when participation is tied back to responsibility can distant war cease to produce disposable lives.