More Chinese Communist Lies Exposed

A jet flies by a Chinese spy balloon as it floats off the coast in Surfside Beach, S.C., on Feb. 4, 2023. Randall Hill/Reuters

Commentary

Information warfare is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy to “win without fighting”: to influence and convince adversary decision-makers, foreign leaders, and others of China’s peaceful intentions despite the reality of the obverse.

Information warfare facilitates the achievement of the CCP’s objectives (frequently achieved at the expense of others) through well-coordinated media, diplomatic, and other efforts aimed at preventing or delaying actions by other countries that would thwart Chinese plans.

Make no mistake. Although nonkinetic in nature, information warfare is real warfare: There are winners and losers, and the Chinese are out to win. If they succeed, Western freedoms and liberty will disappear.

Regardless of the endless dreary lies told by the Chinese state-run media, it’s important to periodically pay attention to them because the CCP telegraphs its real concerns and priorities when it attacks others—particularly its “main enemy,” the United States of America.

Let’s review a few Chinese communist lies bleated by state-run media in recent weeks to see if we can ascertain their real interests.

‘Democracy With Chinese Characteristics’

A recurring propaganda theme is that “democracy with Chinese characteristics” is much better than Western-style democracy. That’s laughable because democracy in China is limited to voting for CCP-approved candidates in all elections. Nevertheless, Global Times blared in a headline on Feb. 11 that the “aggressiveness of US democracy [is] derived from hegemony, bullying and domineering.”

China Global Television Network (CGTN) created a cartoon video in September 2020 to promote critical race theory to American parents and children. Screenshot of the video

Consider that after World War II, the defeated Germans and Japanese are now thriving in vibrant democracies remade with friendly U.S. democratic assistance. Any indigenous complaints about Western-style democracy in those two countries these days are relegated to the fringes on the far left and far right.

Additionally, the people of the world are voting with their feet in favor of the style of democracy they prefer. Africans and Middle Easterners have flooded Western Europe for decades, while 6 million illegal immigrants from all over the world (and even China!) have flooded into the United States across the Mexican border over the past two years. In contrast, no one is clamoring to immigrate to authoritarian China, given the ongoing decades of genocide in Tibet and East Turkmenistan and the persecution of other minorities, as well as the spectacle of the brutal crushing of Hong Kong’s democracy beginning in 2020.

Yet the Chinese must continue to attack Western-style democracy because it’s the dominant form of government to which most people around the world aspire. Thus, the communists are forced to play word games in one-upping the West by propagating that “democracy with Chinese characteristics” is somehow the better system. Absurdity, of course, but their information warfare campaign continues unabated on this subject.

The Zero-COVID Policy Reversal

For nearly three years since its implementation at the personal direction of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the unscientific zero-COVID policy ravaged the Chinese people and economy through arbitrary mandatory lockdowns, travel restrictions, draconian testing regimens, worthless mask mandates, forced vaccinations, and other restrictive measures.

Xi, his “wolf warrior” diplomatic corps, and Chinese state-run media trumpeted the ostensible success in controlling COVID-19, thanks to Xi’s personal leadership while attempting to convince the world to implement China’s zero-COVID measures everywhere.

Firefighters spray water on a fire at a residential building in Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang Region on Nov. 24, 2022, in a still from video footage. From a different angle, it could be seen that the water couldn't reach the fire in the building due to firefighters reportedly being trapped outside a COVID-19 blockade. AP Photo

But the Chinese economy tanked under zero-COVID, especially during the fourth quarter of 2022 (2.9 percent), with officially reported gross domestic product growth cut by more than half from 2021 (8.1 percent) to 2022 (3 percent). Additionally, street protests and riots broke out in dozens of cities at the end of 2022, which led to the “white paper revolution” that ultimately forced Xi to blink and rescind his zero-COVID policy back in December 2022.

This was a remarkable policy reversal on par with reversing the disastrous CCP policies associated with the Cultural Revolution (millions dead) and the one-child policy (China’s population is now in decline). No excuses or admissions of failure by the CCP! After all, the CCP’s management skills can’t be challenged in China!

Yet although the phrase “zero-COVID” has been dropped like a hot rock, Global Times on Jan. 29 claimed that “China’s COVID approach highlights unity, community with shared future,” and that China has “entered a new stage in COVID prevention and control.” How is that for slickness in reporting the policy reversal without mentioning the spike in deaths and infections across China while attempting to downplay Western media reports of Chinese COVID-19 policy failures?

In the CCP’s information warfare campaign against the United States and the West, the illusion continues to be pushed regarding Chinese leadership despite the contrarian facts. The propaganda message is that China’s world leadership in “fighting COVID” remains undiminished and that a new phase has begun, never mind filing the failed “zero-COVID” phrase down the memory hole.

Balloon Lies

The saga of “balloon-gate” has riveted the world’s attention over the past weeks. The Biden administration allowed a Chinese surveillance balloon to violate U.S. sovereignty and drift over the continental United States, collecting data in the vicinity of nuclear silos and other highly sensitive U.S. military installations until it was finally shot down off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4.

FBI special agents assigned to the evidence response team process material recovered from the Chinese spy balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina, at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., on Feb. 9, 2023. FBI via AP

A flurry of investigative reports exposed Chinese balloon missions that were launched all over the world over the past several years, Chinese violations of national sovereignty with impunity, and rampant speculation about possible past and future balloon missions. The United States has determined that “the balloon was tied to a major surveillance program run by China’s military, which includes the use of similar aircraft in more than 40 countries under the direction of the People’s Liberation Army,” according to Fox News.

While recovery of the balloon wreckage was still underway, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 419–0 on Feb. 9 to condemn Beijing for a “brazen violation of U.S. sovereignty.” Note that in the hyperpartisan, politically divided United States, obtaining a unanimous vote on anything these days is a remarkable event.

Perhaps surprised by the U.S. reaction, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has condemned both the shooting down of the “civilian research balloon” and the “political escalation” by the United States of the balloon incident. Beijing also confirmed that it denied a U.S. proposal for a phone call to discuss the balloon on Feb. 9. And on Feb. 10, Chinese state-run media outlet People’s Daily continued to claim that the balloon was a “civilian unmanned airship [that] unintendedly entered U.S. airspace last week due to force majeure.” (Force majeure means “an event or effect that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled.”)

The CCP is sticking with its civilian airship lie despite reports that its balloon was “operated with the involvement of the Strategic Support Force (SSF), a command tasked with strategic space, cyber and electronic warfare missions for China’s military,” according to The Japan News. Also reported by the Japanese media outlet: “The Chinese spy balloon [has been linked] to a vast surveillance program run by the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] ... [that] has collected information on military assets in ... Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.”

The Chinese “balloon-gate” information warfare goal has been to delay, deny, obfuscate, attack, and attempt to flip the script when caught red-handed. Preserving “face” is the only option in a situation such as this that’s of the CCP’s own making, even when the facts destroy its claims. This is ever the Chinese communist way!

Concluding Thoughts

The CCP information warfare campaign against the West propagates long-term narratives and myths to the world, such as the superiority of “democracy with Chinese characteristics” and successful Chinese leadership in combatting COVID-19. Beijing is also nimble enough—but considerably clumsier—in responding to emergent embarrassments such as “balloon-gate.”

Communist denials almost always mask the truth. Attacks on the United States and the West aren’t the behavior of civilized nations. Chinese diplomatic insults have become the norm. Reality is almost always the opposite of that Chinese leadership, diplomats, and state-run media claim.

The reality is that Chinese communist-speak, in particular, is an integral part of the CCP’s information warfare campaign against the rest of the world, and the relentless repetition of its lies does indeed negatively impact the weak-willed and uninformed among us.

The United States and the West need to constantly confront the lies and push back on Chinese belligerence wherever and whenever it’s discovered because that won’t stop until the CCP is destroyed.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.