China, Russia and Iran are flooding the global information space with false claims (lies, really), about the new coronavirus, according to U.S. officials, who say one of the biggest lies — that the virus that causes COVID-19 is a U.S. bioweapon and was brought to China by U.S. Army personnel — is just the latest in a “surge of propaganda” aimed at undermining America’s image on the world stage.
Beijing, Moscow and Tehran are using a vast web of social media accounts, fake news outlets and state-controlled global satellite media to promote false claims and outright lies by academics and, at times, government officials, to wrongly blame Washington for the crisis now gripping most of humanity.
THE HEAD OF A KEY STATE DEPARTMENT COUNTERDISINFORMATION OFFICE SAID U.S. OFFICIALS ARE RAMPING UP THEIR OWN EFFORTS TO COUNTER LIES ABOUT THE NEW CORONAVIRUS THAT WERE FIRST SEEDED BY RUSSIA IN JANUARY AND THAT CHINA IS NOW PUSHING IN A BID TO MAKE BEIJING APPEAR AS A SUPERIOR GLOBAL POWER TO THE UNITED STATES.
U.S. Special Envoy Lea Gabrielle, who leads the department’s Global Engagement Center, told The Washington Times on Sunday that the Chinese are “engaged in an all-out aggressive campaign to try to reshape the global narrative around the coronavirus, essentially to the degree of trying to provide an alternate reality of what has actually happened since December.”
Teams of international scientists, including even several from inside China, have agreed for more than a month that the virus came from a “wet market” in Wuhan — where fish, poultry and other animals are slaughtered on the premises — and that any other claims about the virus’ origins are bogus.
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