China's anti-US coronavirus propaganda ridiculous — so what's behind Beijing's lies?
It’s high time that China be called for its propaganda and anti America lies. They are trying to blame America for the Wuhan virus. We need to counter their propaganda, economic agenda and military/intelligence efforts around the world.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
For quite some time, China has been trying to undercut the foundation of American global power. Unlike Moscow ’s often coarse, brutish efforts, Beijing has been stealthier than an F-35, using public diplomacy initiatives to subtly buy its way into schools, civil society and the private sector.
Now, however, the mask — and the gloves — are coming off.
In the last few days, the Chinese Communist Party has changed its propaganda tactics. Party officials, government representatives and state media are now overtly attacking the U.S., spreading deliberate lies about the COVID-19 outbreak.
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This dramatic shift leaves experts pondering: What’s up?
More specifically: Why are Chinese government officials now publicly denying that the coronavirus started in Hubei province and citing conspiracy web sites that claim the U.S. is responsible for the virus?
Recently, Lin Songtian, the Chinese ambassador to South Africa made both those claims.
Lin is no loose cannon. He does, however, know Africa well. Apparently he has judged that Africa will be receptive to more aggressive propaganda efforts.
Lin’s conspiracy charge may well get traction in Africa, where there lingers a deep distrust of CIA activities from the Cold War. The old Soviet disinformation campaign claiming that the CIA created AIDS took root in the continent and remains to this day.
Moreover, the Chinese have been peppering Africa with anti-American messages for years now — all part of its aggressive program to penetrate and dominate the African media market.
But the new stridency of China’s anti-American propaganda is not limited to just Africa or just COVID-19. Recently, Chinese state media attacked the U.S. Millennium Challenge Cooperation investment in Sri Lanka, accusing America of using the development program as a “Trojan Horse” with a “hidden agenda.”
To say that Beijing’s brand has been tarnished would grossly understate the case. So picking on the U.S. could be only a desperate attempt to divert attention away from its manifest failures.
So what is up with Beijing?
The regime is reeling from a terrible string of failures and misjudgments. Developing nations are wising up to the “debt traps” set by China’s global Belt and Road initiative. Many countries — especially those in Asia — are outraged by China’s response to the protests in Hong Kong and its meddling in the Taiwan elections. Then came the coronavirus and Beijing’s abysmal response, which sparked a global pandemic.
To say that Beijing’s brand has been tarnished would grossly understate the case. So picking on the U.S. could be only a desperate attempt to divert attention away from its manifest failures.
More likely, though, it’s just of a matter of the COVID-19 charge being so preposterous as to draw our attention to the type of propaganda that’s been out there — but largely ignored by the U.S. — for quite some time.
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China has been running a smear campaign to undermine U.S. influence in Africa and South Asia for years. Thanks to the World Wide Web, we are able to see more of it.
In addition, China has long relied on the president’s critics in the U.S. to pick up messaging critical of the White House and push it through the domestic anti-Trump megaphone. For example, when U.S. officials started referring to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan Virus,” (a name earlier propagated by the media), the regime in Beijing objected that the term was somehow “racist.” Some on the American left — including members of the media who had used the term themselves — quickly picked up and repeated the accusation.
Finally, there is no question that China is responding to what is no longer a one-sided propaganda war. This administration has been anything but quiet in its criticism of Beijing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for example, has consistently called out “the Communist Chinese Party,” not “China,” as being the source of troubles from Beijing.
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So far, the administration has kept its multipronged dealings with China on separate tracks. Thus, the U.S. tries to negotiate trade deals with Beijing even as it moves to counter China’s growing military power and the global war of words heats up. Maintaining that sense of balance and discipline in the competition is key to protecting U.S. interests and keeping the competition from spinning out of control.
The bottom line is, regardless of how the current outbreak of COVID-19 plays out, the great power competition between the U.S. and China will continue for some time. The global pandemic triggered by Beijing’s inept response has produced one positive side effect, however. It has sharpened our recognition that China’s public diplomacy masks the malign anti-Americanism of an increasingly powerful competitor on the global stage.
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James Jay Carafano is vice president of foreign and defense policy studies The Heritage Foundation .
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China has long relied on the president’s critics in the U.S. to pick up messaging critical of the White House and push it through the domestic anti-Trump megaphone. For example, when U.S. officials started referring to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan Virus,” (a name earlier propagated by the media), the regime in Beijing objected that the term was somehow “racist.” Some on the American left — including members of the media who had used the term themselves — quickly picked up and repeated the accusation.
Finally, there is no question that China is responding to what is no longer a one-sided propaganda war. This administration has been anything but quiet in its criticism of Beijing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for example, has consistently called out “the Communist Chinese Party,” not “China,” as being the source of troubles from Beijing.
So far, the administration has kept its multipronged dealings with China on separate tracks. Thus, the U.S. tries to negotiate trade deals with Beijing even as it moves to counter China’s growing military power and the global war of words heats up. Maintaining that sense of balance and discipline in the competition is key to protecting U.S. interests and keeping the competition from spinning out of control.
The bottom line is, regardless of how the current outbreak of COVID-19 plays out, the great power competition between the U.S. and China will continue for some time. The global pandemic triggered by Beijing’s inept response has produced one positive side effect, however. It has sharpened our recognition that China’s public diplomacy masks the malign anti-Americanism of an increasingly powerful competitor.
Before Christmas, North Korea’s Kim promised a big present yet nothing has been apparent but this virus. There has been zero virus news from the country adjacent to the origin. Not that it was developed artificially but Hu knew what when?
I'm satisfied to rely on the WHO reports.
So who started the war? Who started interfering in China's domestic affairs? Who started a trade war to harm China's economy? Pot-kettle? Here's a recent example of Americans twisting what China said to make it sound like a threat:
So I suggest you send back the boatload of masks and other equipment sent by billionaire Jack Ma - they might be soaked in the virus to poison Americans. s/
We should pay attention to them but I sure as hell hope we don't rely on them. We need to do our own homework.
Of course.
WHO has been compromised by the regime in Beijing.
There seems to be no end to the conspiracy theories, misinformation, false news and the panic and paranoia they produce. Go to it, keep it up and pay the price. For example, there's LOTS of toilet paper.
So the Wuhan virus is retribution for pro democracy comments regarding Hong Kong and The Republic of China and for the exchange of higher tariffs? Is this their tool to bring down the economies of western democracies?
If you had read the article you linked you might learn that blaming others is much more of an American thing than a Chinese one. I know you need to proselytize your religion and politics wherever you want, even if it's not welcome.
Is China not busy accusing the US military of Introducing the virus to the Wuhan area in the 1st place?
Yet another ridiculous accusation. China has admitted it started at a wildlife wet Market in Wuhan, which it then closed.
If the Chinese government spent as much time working on educating its people and regulating dangerous markets as it does on secrecy and propaganda efforts, maybe it wouldn’t have to worry as much about diseases being named after it.
The World Health Organization and other sensitive souls have instructed us to stop referring to the new strain of coronavirus as the “Wuhan” or “Chinese” flu because of the racist connotations. I’m disinclined to curb my speech to placate Chinese propagandists — and it seems to me the aversion to those terms is less about racism than about averting blame. But in the spirit of comity, and avoiding disparaging an entire nation, I’m happy to call it the ChiCom Flu moving forward. There are many traditional naming conventions that don’t really make that much sense. Somewhat weirdly, for example, we often name diseases after the people who “discover” them — Hodgkin’s disease after Thomas Hodgkin, Parkinson’s disease after James Parkinson, and so on.
But naming viral diseases after places — Guinea Worm, West Nile Virus, Ebola, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, etc. — is probably just intuitive. Viruses “come” from someplace, after all, and thus people gravitate to those names. I doubt we came up with “Lyme disease” because of some deep enmity towards Connecticut.
Anyway, “COVID-19” or “H1N1” don’t exactly roll off the tongue.
The latter was, until very recently, widely referred to as the “Spanish flu,” a virus that killed around 675,000 Americans and tens of millions of others around the world in the early 1900s. “Spanish flu” has now retroactively fallen into disfavor as well. And to be fair, there is some historical evidence that the virus may actually have originated in China or France, so if we must call it the French flu moving forward, so be it.
But while the Spanish have a good case to be annoyed, the Chinese government does not. As Jim Geraghty notes, the Communist Chinese have been far more effective in stopping the spread of information about the coronavirus than in stopping the spread of the coronavirus itself. Today, for example, China expelled most American journalist from the country.
Early on, the Communists destroyed samples and suppressed vital information that could have helped mitigate the damage of this new strain of coronavirus. The government also silenced doctors who warned about the disease. Some were censured for “spreading rumors” or sharing test results with colleagues, and some were forced to write a self-critical public letters — a Marxist mainstay — admitting that the warning “had a negative impact.” The Chinese Communists probably let five million people leave Wuhan without screening, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Chinese Communists, like all Communists, hide their societal problems. There is no crime, disease, or addiction in the collectivist state. This kind of secrecy and dishonesty can be disastrous, especially in a highly interconnected world.
Though millions of Chinese have been lifted out of extreme poverty through free trade, with modernity comes some basic responsibilities — like, for instance, not killing everyone in the world with preventable zoonotic diseases.
The Chinese regime is perfectly capable of administering an array of authoritarian policies to suppress the rights of its own people. But it’s apparently unable to exert even mild cultural pressure warning them that their eating habits can be extraordinarily dangerous, and hold the potential of creating massive socioeconomic problems....
I don't think that's an unreasonable opinion piece, and in fact I have even been to the kind of markets here that are open air, that sell snakes and other wildlife, and I can well imagine that because of the tastes of the less sophisticated Chinese people they eat things that my wife and her family would never touch. I know I would never eat a Cicada even if it were coated in chocolate, but many people here do eat them.
I have seen reports that wildlife sales in wet markets were being banned, but who knows - it's a matter of supply satisfying demand.
Just as you have taken note of propaganda and coverup, I don't think such things are exclusive to China, and you know very well that false news is universal.
I believe that the diet of the Jews and Muslims as well as some Christians based on the verse in Exodus is right about clean and unclean animals birds and sea creatures to eat. Because of the Ark account in Genesis where two of each animals entered along with 7 of each clean type, God had our health in mind rather than some ceremonial rule.