China, Iran and Russia are using the coronavirus crisis to launch a propaganda and disinformation onslaught against the United States, the State Department warns in a new report.
The three governments are pushing a host of matching messages: that the novel coronavirus is an American bioweapon, that the U.S. is scoring political points off the crisis, that the virus didn’t come from China, that U.S. troops spread it, that America’s sanctions are killing Iranians, that China’s response was great while the U.S.’ was negligent, that all three governments are managing the crisis well, and that the U.S. economy can’t bear the toll of the virus.
Some of the disinformation is produced by state-run media outlets, and some has been put out by the governments themselves. A website run by Russia’s Defense Ministry, for instance, highlights the conspiracy theory that billionaire Bill Gates played a role in creating the virus.
The State Department report pointed to a March 10 article in the Global Times, a property of Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily. The article argued that China’s “image as a responsible world power has been further strengthened, rather than dented” by the pandemic. Two weeks later, the Iran-based Tasnim News Agency — which describes its mission as “[d]efending the Islamic Revolution against negative media propaganda campaign” — highlighted comments from the country’s top general thanking China for “humanitarian moves” related to the pandemic.
Who is helping fight the virus — and who isn’t — has been a core focus for governments and citizens around the world. [B]On March 3, a media company controlled by Russia’s armed forces ZVEZDA ran a story headlined “Bill Gates, a secret laboratory and a conspiracy of pharmaceutical companies: who can benefit from coronavirus.”
The piece intimates that Gates had foreknowledge of the virus and claims that only people of “the Mongoloid race” can contract Covid-19. [/B]