The Chinese Communist Party quickly backed off a campaign to accuse the U.S. Army of manufacturing the coronavirus, say defense officials, but disinformation emanating from Russia continues.
“Disinformation comes in different forms,” said Chad Sbragia, deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, at a Pentagon briefing Friday. “The one that was of most concern to us in DoD lanes was the false accusation that COVID-19 began with the U.S. Army service member bringing that to China.”
Sbragia flatly denied the claim and noted that he spoke to his Chinese military counterpart to assert that the campaign was unhelpful to bilateral relations.
“This is moving the coronavirus issue out of an area of cooperation between the two militaries and into an area of confrontation,” he said. “They have since backed away from that narrative.”
Russia has handled misinformation differently.
“We’ve seen this playbook before,” said Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Asia.
Specifically, Cooper said Russian malign actors have been disseminating misinformation about the spread of the virus and the U.S. response.
“The first and, I think, the most pernicious disinformation that we want to contend is disinformation that is sewing global mistrust and confusion,” she said, noting that the department detected some stories emanating from Russia and Iran.
One thread argued hand-washing was ineffective; another thread tied to Russia related to “criticizing the government response as sort of clamping down on freedoms.”
“[There was] a confluence of disinformation in the United States saying that we were purposely spreading COVID-19,” she said of another. “We’re calling on all countries, Russia included, to reign in malign actors.”
Neither official could say definitively if Russia’s or China’s respective COVID-19 outbreaks have affected military readiness in those countries.
“It’s too soon to tell,” said Cooper, though she noted that disinformation has called into question U.S. military readiness.
Sbragia added, “I can’t say that it has had a significant effect, but I think we’re all struggling with it, to include the operational activity that we have to do for domestic response.”
Sbragia also said that while the United States cannot closely assess impacts to Chinese soldiers, there have been indications that China knows the nation’s readiness to be at high alert. This is despite the sidelining of the Pacific aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in Guam as a result of an outbreak on board.
“They’ve taken note that we stand ready and forward [and are] operational as normal in a very stable way,” he said. “But they’ve taken a very close note about what we’re doing and what we continue to do.”
