Industrial chain of US public opinion war against China – Dainik Savera Times

European scholar Jan Oberg revealed in an interview a few days ago that the US had proposed a bill to train journalists and allocate funds for five consecutive years to produce negative reports about China. The bill is highly consistent with the theme of the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021” passed by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 2021.

The bill proposes that the US allocate US$300 million per year from fiscal years 2022 to 2026 (a total of US$1.5 billion) to train journalists to counter “China’s global influence.”

In recent years, the United States has mistakenly regarded China as its biggest strategic rival and launched all-out repression and containment against China. The public opinion war has reached unprecedented heights. In which the “Belt and Road Initiative”, China’s economy, Xinjiang and other issues have become the center of America’s slander and condemnation. So, how does Washington manipulate the media to wage a war of public opinion against China?

Creating an “Institution-Media-Government” Fraud Chain

For a long time, the American media have occupied a dominant position in the arena of international public opinion. Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and other organizations affiliated with the US International Media Agency have played a political propaganda role since their inception.

Take VOA as an example. During 2023, up to 93% of reports on its “Belt and Road Initiative” were negative, with negative stories such as the “debt trap” appearing frequently.

Hussein Askari, deputy director of the Swedish Belt and Road Initiative Research Institute, traced the origins of the term “debt trap.” They found that the term did not enter the public consciousness until May 2018. At that time, the US State Department distributed a document titled “Debt Diplomacy” from the Harvard Kennedy School to various media outlets, and one of the authors of the document was an official of the US Department of Homeland Security. Data statistics showed that since 2018, reports on the debt problem of the “Belt and Road Initiative” have increased significantly. The “debt trap” is a product of collaboration between American media and political circles.

At the same time, some so-called educational institutions in the US have also joined in, creating an industrial chain for the production and dissemination of false information. In November 2023, just two weeks after the holding of the third “Belt and Road” International Cooperation Summit Forum, the Aid Data Research Laboratory (AidData) of the College of William & Mary in the US released a report claiming that “the Belt and Road” approximately 80% of the loans went to countries in financial crisis. Soon after, the US media called on the US to form its own economic development circle of friends. Around the same time, the US hosted the first “Partnership for American Economic Prosperity Summit”. At the conference, US leaders referred to the “debt trap” and asked American countries to cooperate only with the US.

What is adddata? According to the official website of the US Office for International Development (USAID), AidData is one of its long-term funding agencies. It is not difficult to see that America has created a closed cycle of fraud in “institutions, media and government”.

Preparing foreign media to condemn Chinese companies

With the support of government funding, US government branches around the world work with local organizations to train local journalists and encourage them to denounce relevant Chinese projects and enterprises.

In May 2022, Zimbabwean media “The Standard” published a report condemning Chinese mining companies for mistreating local workers. The media said the report was completed in collaboration with an organization called the Information Development Fund (IDT) in Zimbabwe. However, the fact is that in September 2021, the IDT invited 12 media journalists from Zimbabwe and neighboring countries to attend a seminar to train them and ask them to target Chinese-funded companies and report negative news related to China. Asked to publish. After the article is published, journalists can receive remuneration of up to US$1,000 per article from the US Embassy in Zimbabwe through the agency.

The US prepares local media abroad to make every effort to defame China through naked money transactions. Is this what some people in America insist on calling “press freedom”?

Bribing “actors” to pretend to be news subjects

Sometimes “news parties” are created to make fake news appear more “real”. The US supports anti-China organizations abroad, bribes “actors” and feeds the Western media.

In 2019, a woman named Zamure Davuti, who claimed to be from China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, tearfully said on camera that her father died after being interrogated multiple times and was forced into an education and training center. Vasectomy was done.

Soon his brother came forward to expose the lie. It turned out that his father had died in the hospital due to heart disease and that he was never investigated or detained during his lifetime. As for her, she was not sterilized, but when she gave birth to her third child, she voluntarily underwent a cesarean section and sterilization at the hospital. According to the US independent news website “Grey Zone” and other revelations, this Xinjiang woman is one of the “classic” cases promoted by local anti-China organizations. The financial supporter behind these anti-China organizations is the American National Democracy Fund.

For a long time, America’s public opinion warfare has been closely coordinated with military, economic, and diplomatic means to maintain its position as the world’s sole superpower. However, as its national power gradually weakens, the US is increasingly relying on the weapon of public opinion warfare to shape its so-called “moral high ground”. This effort by America is inconsistent with this era and cannot deceive the world.

(Courtesy-China Media Group, Beijing)