US warns of Chinese disinformation. China says that’s disinformation By Mengchen Zhang, Teele Rebane and Heather Chen, CNN Published 3:20 AM EDT, Sun October 1, 2023
A US State Department report that accuses the Chinese government of expanding disinformation efforts is “in itself disinformation,” Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed Saturday.
The ministry shot back after the State Department issued a striking report this week in which it accused the Chinese government of expanding efforts to control information and to disseminate propaganda and disinformation that promotes “digital authoritarianism” in China and around the world.
The US report, issued by the Global Engagement Center on Thursday, alleged that China spends billions of dollars a year on foreign information manipulation and warned that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had “significantly expanded” efforts to “shape the global information environment.”
It also underlined US concerns about China as a main military competitor and key rival in the battle over ideas and global disinformation.
Two days later, China hit back.
“The relevant center of the US State Department which concocted the report is engaged in propaganda and infiltration in the name of ‘global engagement’ – it is a source of disinformation and the command center of ‘perception warfare’,” the ministry said on Saturday.
Referring to wars in Iraq and Syria as well as US reports alleging human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang as examples, the ministry claimed that the US is “an ‘empire of lies’ through and through.”
“No matter how the US tries to pin the label of ‘disinformation’ on other countries, more and more people in the world have already seen through the US’s ugly attempt to perpetuate its supremacy by weaving lies into ‘emperor’s new clothes’ and smearing others,” the ministry said.
They’re one of the biggest countries, they probably have one of the largest information campaigns.
If it’s only a matter of size then surely they should be warning about Indian misinformation as well. The Hindu supremacy campaign has reached the point where they’re literally changing the name of the country, that seems kind of worrying! But no, America won’t insult India with accusations of misinformation.
Just China. Odd, isn’t it?
Not really no.
Do you think China is not spending billions of dollars a year on foreign information manipulation? Do you think they haven’t expanded efforts to shape the global information environment?
If they have, the US’s claims (in this case specifically) can’t be disinformation, since they would be true.
I don’t think China is especially untrustworthy compared to any other major country. Do you?
I think they work more with soft power and information shaping than most countries yes.
I don’t. I think they probably do engage in that, but no more than any other powerful nation.
Which makes the statement of the US true, and the statement of China false.
No, the US is claiming that China is somehow uniquely untrustworthy. Where are the warnings about Saudi Arabia? Or France? Or Israel?
America is singling out China. Why?
Where are they claiming China is unique? From the quotes I saw, they just claimed they were doing it a lot.
Off the top of my head, only North has a more comprehensive information firewall. And the common online whataboutism not-as-bad-as-the-US then taking about criticism of China is pulled straight from their foreign relations tactics. I wouldn’t be surprised if they planted those arguments in online forums to start, and now the argument is self sustaining. Plus things like the nomenclature around Tiwan and other disputed territories is intentionally confusing.
The firewall doesn’t spread misinformation, which is what the US is talking about.
I bet it is, but that doesn’t make it misinformation.
The firewall does cause misinformation to spread by making their citizens and others in the country misinformed when talking to people outside, making them spread misinformation.
Again, ‘what about’ causes misinformation to spread by making conversation less useful.