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.
America is obviously implying China is especially untrustworthy. Is that actually true?
The distinction between China and United States is the Chinese state has a monopoly on information coming out of China that the United States doesn’t have. I’m free to point out when the state department says a bunch of bullshit in the US, Chinese citizens don’t have that same right
There's no monopoly, but the US certainly can control the narrative when it wants. Maybe you weren't alive for the lies about WMDs in Iraq. Or the Gulf of Tonken incident before that.
America lies about its enemies.
True. But you also found out they were lies, so...
Those lies killed millions of people...
Yes, and you know about them because the US is not that great at controlling "the narrative when it wants" which is what the topic of this discussion was before you realized you were wrong and tried to steer towards the number of killed people. Learn to stay on topic.
Yeah, I guess that's beside the point. It's just so horrific I got distracted.
I guess I'm just not really sure how "America gets caught when it lies" is proof that America is more trustworthy than China. Why is "yeah but you know they lied so it's fine" any kind of defense? And how does that prove China is somehow worse or less trustworthy?
It's because you made up these arguments. No one here said the things you're implying. Just read through the thread again. You're constantly twisting words.
By singling out China and ignoring everyone else America is implying they are uniquely untrustworthy.
If you are allowed to point out someones lies, they are more trustworthy than someone who you are not allowed to accuse of lying.
Ask Julian Assange about being allowed to point out US lies.
Just because the US gets caught doesn't mean it isn't also suppressing whistleblowers.
I was alive for the former but not the latter. I recall mass protests occurred for both incidents. It is a shame that more people didn’t see through the bullshit until after the fact but at the same time the government paid for these lies with eroded trust which makes it that much harder for them to sell a new lie in the future.
Yet you still trust America enough to tell you when China is lying, huh?
There's blind trust, and then there's trust with evidence. This is the latter, you seem to only understand the former.
No? I don't think we assume anything out of China is either true or false, we should try to look at it objectively and focus on the data.
Just assuming China is lying is wrong.
What if the only data you have available about China comes from the Chinese government? No liar will say they are lying.
So you just assume they're lying?
I’ve inspected enough of China’s foreign policy statements on my own to come to the conclusion that they aren’t trustworthy; I don’t need the US state department to tell me that.
Governments lie to save face or achieve their aims all the time. Authoritarian governments do it even more because there is even less accountability than there is in liberal democracies.
Okay, so why is America focusing on Chinese misinformation? Again, are they especially untrustworthy?
Because the bulk of China’s foreign policy goals are at odds with the United States’ foreign policy goals.
Fair enough, but I think that proves China's point - America treating China like an especially bad purveyor of misinformation is, itself, misinformation. They're just another country.
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.
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.
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.
By singling out China and omitting all other purveyors of misinformation because they are US allies.