From ABC News
In global game of influence, China turns to a cheap and effective tool: fake news
By Didi Tang and David Klepper
When veteran U.S. diplomat Kurt Campbell traveled to the Solomon Islands to counter Beijing’s influence in the South Pacific country, he quickly saw just how far China would go to spread its message.
The Biden administration’s Asia czar woke up one morning in 2022 to a long article in the local press about the U.S. running chemical and biological labs in Ukraine, a claim that Washington calls an outright lie. Started by Russia, the false and incendiary claim was vigorously amplified by China's vast overseas propaganda apparatus.
It was another example of “clearly effective Russian and Chinese disinformation,” Campbell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July...
In addition to its state media, Beijing has turned to foreign players — real or not — to relay messages and lend credibility to narratives favoring the Communist Party, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. Xiao also is editor-in-chief of China Digital Times, a bilingual news website that aggregates information from and about China...
Xiao Qiang is the founder and editor-in-chief of the China Digital Times and a research scientist at the School of Information.
