Sept. 30 (UPI) — China on Saturday slammed American accusations that Beijing has spent billions of dollars on creating a global “disinformation” network, calling the United States an “empire of lies.”
A spokesperson from the Chinese foreign ministry stated that the report released on Friday by the U.S. State Department, which claimed that China is attempting to manipulate the global information environment in its favor, is itself a form of disinformation.
Refuting Washington’s allegations about a Chinese “propaganda ecosystem,” the ministry highlighted what it considered to be a “massive falsehood” created to defame China’s policies regarding the Uygher minority in the Xinjiang province. The statement asserted that the United States is fundamentally an “empire of lies.”
The statement further quoted Senator Rand Paul, who, during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing in May 2022, stated, “Do you know [who] the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government.”
This quote has been used by China on multiple occasions to express disagreement with U.S. policies, including the recent State Department report on Chinese disinformation campaigns.
The report identified five key elements of China’s “information manipulation efforts,” including international propaganda, domestic censorship, promotion of “digital authoritarianism,” pressuring international organizations, and control over Chinese-language media.
The authors of the report warned that these efforts could reshape the global information landscape and influence nations to prioritize Beijing’s interests over their own economic and security interests.
In response, Chinese officials argued that it is the United States that has weaponized the global information space.
“Some in the U.S. may believe that they can win the information war by producing enough lies,” said the spokesperson from the Chinese foreign ministry. “But the people of the world are not blind.”
