China’s coronavirus information warfare hydra

Beijing is ultimately responsible for the deceptions that allowed the coronavirus to become a truly global pandemic — one that is smashing lives and economies. Yet much of the global media reporting has been sympathetic to Xi’s regime. As Becket Adams observes, many American journalists are actually presenting China as a kindly big brother and a successful authoritarian container of the virus. This fits pitch perfectly with China’s claim it is offering only hugs and support, not deadly viruses, to all the world’s people.

The fact that otherwise well-informed commentators have lapped up this lunacy is truly tragic. Foreign policy expert Anne Applebaum, who got Xi wrong from the start, is even presenting China as a positive superpower replacement for America.

At the same time, the reality of China’s coronavirus culpability has largely been hidden from the minds of people around the world.

And where China is called out for its lies, the hydra attacks. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang, for example, responded to President Trump’s invocation of the “Chinese virus” by playing the victim: “We urge the U.S. to stop this despicable practice. We are very angry and strongly oppose it.”

Geng is perhaps not the best person to be offering this faux defense-of-truth moralism. After all, he has a penchant for threatening American journalists for just doing their jobs. But apparently, that doesn’t matter. The Communist spokesman has found useful idiot support from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

And don’t get too fixated on China’s accusations of racial prejudice against those who dare to hold Xi to account. That’s just one head of the hydra. The other heads are focused on spewing out a mixture of half-truths and overt lies. For example, Beijing pushes the message that it has sent coronavirus-related aid to countries all over the world. What’s being left out, aside from the fact that the regime in Beijing also sent the virus to all those countries through its negligent suppression of information, is the truth of China’s hoarding of equipment that might save lives abroad.

Then there are the overt lies from Zhao Lijian’s army of professional trolls. Zhao, a Western-focused foreign ministry propagandist, is telling everyone that the U.S. Army is actually responsible for the coronavirus outbreak. Here we see China’s learned experience from the Russians, who remain the masters of disinformation warfare. Their first rule: It doesn’t matter how absurd what you say might sound, just say it with confidence and you’ll get some effect.

As Josh Rogin notes, this hydra also makes use of the coronavirus pandemic to advance China’s imperialist economic agenda. This nakedly immoral opportunism fits with other Chinese activities designed to undermine us.

It should go without saying that we shouldn’t accept this attack on truth and our interests.

We need a Herculean effort to decapitate each lie and offer facts in its place. If not, Xi will escape culpability for the suffering he has caused, and our greatest global adversary will be that much stronger for it.