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.
The US has found a really good dog whistle for “opinions and facts I disagree with.” Everything is disinformation! Some of it is Democrat disinformation (“fake news”), some of it is Republican disinformation (“wrong”), and some of it is foreign disinformation (“makes other country look good and America look bad”). Welcome to the state of modern American journalism, I guess.
For what it’s worth, China doesn’t really need to spend billions of dollars on disinformation abroad because (1) The Great Firewall exists (so foreign disinformation has no domestic impact), (2) China has almost always adopted the “actions speak louder than words” strategy that better aligns with Chinese culture, and (3) China has also taken that view on foreign policy in that it uses the actions of other countries to determine their positions rather than their stated views.
Frankly, a lot of people are applying Western views on Chinese culture without taking a step back and asking themselves WHY there’s such a big gap between what they expect and reality.
disinformation has no domestic impact
Ow, my head.
A significant contributor to the deadliest man-made disaster in the history of mankind was domestic disinformation in China.
Edit: I misread the comment and didn’t see the preceding word ‘foreign’. In hindsight my original comment doesn’t make sense given this context. I don’t agree with OP’s comment though. They seem to rely on the idea that, ‘China is special and unique (unlike you troglodytes)’, as an explanation for how the government behaves in international politics.
I think a different poster explained the CCP’s sophisticated methodology better: “no u”.
They were clearly referring to online foreign disinformation, not domestic disinformation.
The only reason why they would block “foreign disinformation” is absolutely not so that they don’t need to spread misinformation themselves. It’s so that their disinformation has no competition.
