China says US report ‘disinformation in itself’

China has hit back at a United States report alleging it was spending billions of dollars annually to manipulate information, saying it was the US that “invented the weaponizing” of the global information environment.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin released the statement in response to the US State Department's Global Engagement Center Special Report, which said that Beijing has been expanding efforts to spread “false or biased” information to promote positive views on their country and the Chinese Communist Party.

“The US Department of State report is in itself disinformation as it misrepresents facts and truth. In fact, it is the US that invented the weaponizing of the global information space,” Wang said.

Wang alleged that the US State Department was “engaged in propaganda and infiltration in the name of ‘global engagement,’” and was a “source of disinformation and the command center of ‘perception warfare.’”

“Some in the US may think that they can prevail in the information war as long as they produce enough lies. But the people of the world are not blind. 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 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman added.

In its report, the US said China was suppressing information that contradicts their narratives on issues including Taiwan, its human rights practices, the South China Sea, its domestic economy, and international economic engagement.

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s approach to information manipulation includes leveraging propaganda and censorship, promoting digital authoritarianism, exploiting international organizations and bilateral partnerships, pairing cooptation and pressure, and exercising control of Chinese-language media,” the report read.

“Collectively, these five elements could enable Beijing to reshape the global information environment along multiple axes: overt and covert influence over content and platforms; constraints on global freedom of expression; and an emerging community of digital authoritarians,” it added. — BM, GMA Integrated News